D: And also I di I did a study with for the incorporation of new technologies
D: it seems that the remote controls have been have remained the same for the last five , ten years .
D: There is no no significant difference between the the b the first new controls and A: Okay .
D: Yeah . Yeah .
A: Sh next slide ?
A: Okay .
D: Well  more most of the people think that remote controls are ugly , thoroughly .
D: So and they they admit that the the they should uh s they would uh spend more money in a fancier remote control ,
D: which is which is good and it's interesting point .
D: Also the people are worried about about the R_S_I_ disease ,
D: which is if you repeat the sa the same movement , which is not a with a not very appropriate device , you you will have problems whe when you will get old .
D: So s people are uh are worried about the the shape of the of the remote control .
D: They are also  D: they get angry very often because they lost the remote control very often ,
D: so I think it would be a good point to to l to to find a a solution to D: any beep any alarm or something incorporated to with the remote control every time it it get lost .
A: Mm-hmm .
D: And also I found that young people D: the the younger people are the more interested they are in incorporating new technologies in the in the remote control .
A: Okay .
D: So  in my opinion the Mando this Mando shouldn't be very small
D: because the smaller it is , the more like the the liklier it is to get lost .
D: Liklier or more likely ?
B: More likely . D: likely . Okay .
D: Uh people also complain because they they they all have the same size of the buttons for buttons who w which are not very use
D: like f uh memorising channels or or this kind of actions which are not very often
D: but they they shouldn't they shouldn't have the same importance in the in the uh in the remote cont in the remote control .
D: Also the z the design should fit the hand shape .
D: So it may be interesting to to think in a in both prototypes , for right and left handed people .
B: Well th the on the thing is though , most remote controls are used by more than one person .
B: So unless you're kind of targeting single people you know you're gonna maybe
D: Yeah .
B: cut out some a lot of your market .
D: I dunno
D: I th Anyway I think it could be int interesting to to release some a a small fraction of of this remote controls .
C: Well maybe it could be a universal design .
D: Sorry ?
C: A universal design , which is which is good for both the hands .
D: Yeah .
B: Still shaped for yeah for your hand but not for a particular hand , right ?
C: Yeah ?
C: That's right , whether it's left hand or right hand ,
D: Yeah .
C: but but don't you think that the two points are clashing , one thing you are saying design should fit the hand shape and it should not be very small ?
D: Sorry ?
C: The first and the third point , they are clashing .
B: Well it can still be a , you can still extend past the hand .
D: Yeah .
A: Yeah .
C: Okay .
D: Like uh B: Uh .
C: So fitting the hand doesn't mean much then .
B: Well it means like , this remote here is kind of is very thin and long so instead of having you know you might have it kind of a bit bigger
C: Mm-hmm mm-hmm .
D: Yeah , like B: or , you know , with maybe some some finger molds or something .
C: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm .
A: C: So it means design should be similar to the traditional ones ?
B: C: Little sleek , longer ?
B: D: No no
C: And it should fit the hand .
D: I was thinking of so like something A: Something with the shape of the palm ?
D: yeah .
C: Mm-hmm mm-hmm mm-hmm .
B: Some finger grips maybe .
D: Yeah .
B: You could even have some buttons like you know on the sides and everything ,
A: On the sides .
D: Yeah yeah .
D: It sh it shouldn't it shouldn't be symmetric symmetrical .
B: but C: Mm-hm mm-hmm mm-hmm .
D: Not anymore .
D: That's what D: yeah .
A: And then finally D: And finally , the incorporation of a L_C_D_ or a speech recognition system in the remote control could also be interesting ,
D: but I don't know if the budget would be large enough .
B: Yeah .
A: Yeah .
A: First I'm just wondering about the L_C_D_ stuff
D: But most of yeah most of the young people to thirty to thirty years old were really interested in this kind of technology .
A: because uh because A: Yeah , so maybe it's a good time for me to uh to bring you to some new uh new informations .
A: We had the new requirements from the so uh from the head offices of the company ,
A: and so they wanted so they want to um they would like to be restricted to T_V_ .
B: Yeah .
A: Okay , I dunno if you had this information already .
B: No .
A: No ,
A: so they want us to restrict the remote control to T_V_ only because of time limitations .
A: Um they want also uh D: Actually this marketing report is restricted to T_V_ remote controls .
A: Excellent .
A: So we have also to focus more on the internet aspects because well well te teletext is outdated now
A: and uh finally , it should be clear that the corporate image , that means colours and logos of the co our company should be clearly inde identified in the product .
B: I was still uh I was still working on this uh twenty five Euro price point
A: So B: because I think actually having looked at some of the remotes out there , this is quite a low uh price
B: if if we're B: maybe I can get to this in my presentation though ,
B: but um yeah .
A: Yeah yeah . Sure sure .
A: So maybe we can jump to your presentations , right now .
B: Yep . Okay .
A: Okay so let's keep in mind about tha that that this last point about L_C_D_ and speech uh reco
B: Yeah .
B: I think even even if it was within budget do a speech reco rec system it might be a bit difficult
B: because if you think if you're watching T_V_ you're gonna have a lot of this uh background noise from the T_V_ which might interfere with the A: A: Sorry ,
A: what is your ?
B: Uh participant three .
B: You might have some background noise from the T_V_ which will make the speech recognition much uh harder , so .
D: Yeah but you should be able to activate or disactivate ,
D: so yeah yeah .
B: Oh you press a press a button to talk , and the the T_V_ the T_V_ sound turns off . D: Yeah
D: uh channel fifty .
D: Yeah .
C: No
C: it could be command control kind of thing .
C: It requir recognises particular sequence and then it gets activated .
C: Means you say C: you should say like does that , remote control being on or be on kind of thing , and then remote control comes in the picture for the speech recognition .
B: Yeah .
C: Because this kind of thing means speech is there from the T_V_ also .
B: Yeah .
C: So there should be something command controlled , you start and then you stop .
B: Mm .
B: Yeah .
C: It's like V_I_ editor , you are having two modes similarly .
B: C: Otherwise it's just lying idle .
A: Okay Michael .
B: Okay , so , could I describe the mouse maybe B: be easier to A: Sorry ?
B: could I use the mouse , or A: Um yeah .
B: Mm . Thanks .
B: Okay .
A: The wheel doesn't work .
B: Great .
C: A: B: Okay so um while uh researching this this topic I first of all just thought of a couple of things that I would like to see in a remote ,
B: and just uh looked to see if they're actually available in any current remotes ,
B: and then also searched for which are the top-rated uh remote controls on Epinions dot com , which is a a you know a a customer um written basically review site .
B: So um there's a pretty wide range of uh remote controls these days
B: and and uh this remote control on the right here is is one of the more extravagant ,
B: but it's not really B: it's by no means uh mm you know on it's own in being so expensive .
B: There are a lot of expensive remote controls out there .
A: Looks like a P_D_A_ ?
B: So  B: yeah it doe
B: it's B: well basically all the functions uh are controlled through through the L_C_D_ screen
B: except for the really really kind of main functions , which have a couple of of their own buttons .
B: Um and if you look at a lot of the universal remotes out um on the market ,
B: I know we're working on television remote , but a lot of the universal remotes out there have uh have these L_C_D_ screens
B: which kind of helps when you're using multiple uh devices I suppose because you can have multiple kind of functions d different functions on the screen at different times .
B: But um the thing that I find most interesting about this remote control , and it's kind of difficult to uh to see in the slide , but it has a scroll wheel on it ,
B: which is kind of like uh a mouse scroll wheel ,
B: which I think is it's a really kind of important design aspect
B: um is it's B: 'Cause the thing is what a what we the presen this presentation we had is what we want the remote control to actually do .
B: And obviously the the simplest thing that a remote control does is it just change the change the channel .
C: Change the channels .
C: Yeah .
B: Now um
B: uh the B: I think that a scroll wheel is actually pretty a pretty handy way of of changing the channel .
B: 'Cause I know when I um when I use the remote to change the channel I very rarely use the numbers on the on the pad .
C: Mmm-hmm mm-hmm .
B: I usually use the up and down
C: Yeah yeah .
B: because most channels are you know two digit numbers and you have to press you know a special button to enter a two-digit number , and then two numbers ,
B: so that's just uh it's annoying .
B: So I think a scroll wheel is is quite handy .
B: Now um
B: the the scroll wheel is is much more useful if you have an L_C_D_ screen ,
B: and this brings us to the the point you were mentioning before about the internet uh capability .
A: Mm-hmm .
B: One possibility , if we B: now we need to still talk about the price point
B: because obviously a lot of this stuff can't be done for twenty five Eu uh Euro ,
B: but one possibility is to download program information into the L_C_D_ screen
B: so that instead of actually saying I want to I want to go to channel thirty seven because I know this programme's on ,
B: you know , often you don't know what ch what channel it's on , or you don't know what's on .
B: If you have a list of of programs on your L_C_D_ screen you just scroll to that program rather than to a channel .
B: So if you think about it's kind of like a you know in mobile phones now you don't use you don't remember people's phone number , you remember their name and you go find that name and ring it .
A: B: So this would be pretty kind of a handy thing to have ,
B: but um we we really need t to discuss the price .
B: So , I mean there are B: there are uh cheaper B: this is another multi kinda purpose remote control where it's it's it's very simple ,
B: there's only a few buttons , but al each of those buttons does something different in a different context .
B: So this is something else we might wanna consider , is really kind of limiting the number of buttons ,
B: because this is the top rating uh universal remote control on on Epinions .
B: It it's really uh maybe worth thinking about limiting the number of buttons as much as as possible
B: um because really I think people want to be able to find the button they're looking for without even looking at the remote control .
B: And was saying before about having different size buttons for different you know frequently used uh tasks ,
B: but I think also you know the location and and shape of the buttons is important , but also the number of buttons .
B: So if you have too many buttons it it it increases the the difficulty of finding the one you want .
C: But there is one problem then the user has to understand each of that functionality .
B: So A: Mm-hmm .
B: Yeah well we w
C: Because the same button is doing too many things .
B: Yeah
B: well we will have a bit of a simpler uh task in that we're only doing uh a television remote control .
B: Um I think maybe one option is to have you know a little flip-open um door that uh that you have hidden most of the time , but contains the extra buttons like , say , the number buttons for instance . Um
C: Mm-hmm .
B: I I would B: if I had my perfect remote control , I'd probably just have no numbers at all on it because they're just in the way .
C: Mm-hmm .
B: They don't really do anything .
B: Maybe you know I B: although I do also find flip-open doors a bit of a pain because sometimes they can break off or or whatever ,
B: but maybe a door that you can you can permanantly remove or permanantly have on would be good .
C: Mm-hmm .
B: Um but I think definitely you need to to keep the buttons down to a minimum , but not not let that kind of interfere with the functionality of of the device .
B: Um D: H I think I think that the tr the transition to this to this new remote control shouldn't be very very abrupt very hard
D: because w if people see a remo see the see a remote control without numbers mm they will think it's very difficult to learn very difficult to very different build very different to the traditional C: It does sampling out of the .
A: B: Well I guess that depends on how you market it .
B: If you B: if you have the right advertisement showing how how how easy it is and how you can , you know , navigate to a program without the numbers , then people might say that looks pretty easy .
D: If y
A: Okay , can you continue , please Mi ?
B: So , but D: B: yep .
B: Um okay , so , I think um one of the really kind of useful things you can do with with internet connectivity would be to have this a programme driven interface rather than the channel number .
B: So if we can have a higher priced uh remote control I think that would really be worth uh something that would be worth implementing .
B: Um mm there's the L_C_D_ screen ,
B: um which maybe maybe is too expensive ,
B: um but I think also at the scroll wheel , I haven't mentioned it here ,
B: the scroll wheel could be used without an L_C_D_ screen , just for changing channel numbers easily .
B: I think even that ,
A: B: I mean , that would be a fairly cheap thing , compared to an L_C_D_ screen , to implement ,
A: Mm-hmm .
B: um but I think that would be quite useful as well .
B: And the other thing , you say we need to we need to keep it just television ,
B: but I think one maybe one option , since this is supposed to be a kind of a fashionable device , is you know there's a certain kind of cool or wow factor that you can kind of you can have with technology ,
B: and maybe we wanna make it something that's extensible to do other tasks .
B: Say you have like um a little another little kind of base unit that can also receive signals as well as the television where you can , say uh , change the lighting in the room .
B: You know that would be something maybe you could sell as an extra , so that it doesn't have to be part of the initial development ,
B: but , you know , later on you could you can you know you B: also , selling the potential of the device .
B: Then you say potentially you can then do other cool stuff like change the lights , I dunno , close the windows , whatever , turn the heating on ,
B: and um , I think that's something we may need to have as as at least as an optional extra to to kinda make our product cool , since we say we're putting the fashion in electronics .
A: Okay . A: Okay .
A: Okay , thanks .
A:  you want to go ?
C: Yep .
C: So yeah .
B: A: C: So most of the things which we are discussing about is speech recognition uh ,
C: that means on my own I A: This one ?
C: yeah , it should be .
A: Great .
A: No , not that one .
A: you are two .
C: Two .
A: Alright . C: Okay so the working design is uh
C: user i interface could be of two types ,
C: one is the usual press buttons which are there so that the user feels that he is knoing doing some he is knowing about that technology .
C: So he is pretty comfortable if he wants to get this ,
C: and on top of that there there could be a speech recognition technology also being sitting on the on the remote .
C: So the old kind of users who don't want to have any changes , it can it can be useful for them ,
C: and the new users , as uh our Marketing Expert was saying , they can use the new gizmo which is speech recognition kind of thing .
A: Okay ,
A: sorry to interrupt you ,
A: but we have seen before that there is a new way of interacting that use wheel .
C: That's right .
C: So anyway , that didn't come into my mind ,
A: Okay .
C: so th that is a possibility .
C: These could be other kind of interfaces .
C: Means we can have , depending on the cost , how much we can afford , we can have different kind of interfaces .
A: C: So spe buttons are something which is very everybody is familiar with .
C: So if you go to the market and you say that buttons are there the people know what it is ,
A: Mm-hmm .
C: and on top of that if we are having extra functionality people are willing to shell that twenty-five Euros money which we are thinking .
C: Otherwise we are just like others in the market .
C: So anyway that is the first , user interface could be of more than one type ,
C: and uh yeah that means we can do the on-line changes which which cannot be done now actually .
C: So apart from the speech , we can have the scroll kind of thing with the buttons .
C: Now for buttons , normal requirements like bit coding and all those things are required .
C: And for voice , limited vocabulary automatic speech recognition system is required and we require a microphone also to be sitting there on the remote .
A: Yeah .
A: That increases the the cost also .
C: Uh that's right .
C: But uh means we have to see how much what kind of microphones and stuff like that .
A: Do you think that performance of such systems are enough to to target well of such technologies is enough ?
C: Uh yes , if it is limited vocabulary usually it's enough .
A: Okay .
C: Yeah we we can uh target , means we can target ninety five percent accuracy or somewhere ninety seven perc
A: Well wh uh I imagine also that the microphone will be an ambiance um a um an ambience microphones
B: Hmm .
C: That's right .
A: because you are not going to speak into into th into the remote control .
C: No it it could be little d yeah it could be A: So it could be s a few centimetres .
B: Well one one other thing that that speech recognition could really blow out the price for is uh when you want to sell into other markets , though ,
C: That's right . That's right .
B: because , I'm not sure exactly where we're gonna sell this , but I presume it's not gonna just be English speaking countries .
A: Yeah .
B: So then you have to s you know , you have to train models for C: Mm-hmm mm-hmm .
C: Uh it's more like , means there are different speech technologies which are existing
C: so D_T_W_ could be kind of which is the easiest .
C: So you have to store some templates on the on the on the chip itself ,
C: and it's just dynamic time warping where you try to find out what it is ,
C: instead of having a model which has to be trained and being a micro-controller .
B: Yeah .
A: Okay .
A: Okay we shou we should discuss this la later after after after this this uh slide .
C: Yeah , that's right .
C: Yeah .
C: So we can
A: This is a this is a this is a a very important uh issue in discussion .
C: That's right . Yep .
A: Okay , next .
C: Yep .
A: Uh that finished ?
C: No no .
C: Components .
A: No ?
A: Components ?
C: Yeah .
C: So , will you go to the next slide ?
A: Yes sure .
B: C: Yeah so this is the design which we are thinking so .
C: We are having a power button and the switch , which is not much ,
B: C: and then we are having the which is to indicate whether the power is on or not .
C: And then there are two kind of things which can be C: so one is the button interface which has not been shown because because of lack of time .
B: C: So we could not put that .
C: So now where the A_S_R_ decoder is sitting , similarly there are different kind of interfaces which could be there .
C: So there is A_S_R_ decoder which could be there ,
C: and then there could be another scroll button scroll scroller ,
C: and then there could be buttons ,
C: and all of them they will just do the decoding and put it in the math put it in the proper message format .