Now Hear This: Full Ahead!

The Kinokawa Mam, a 92,207-ton ore carrier, pulled out of Tokyo harbor last week on its maiden voyage to Australia. When Captain Yukio Imai wanted to change speed, he did not order a crew member to yank the traditional brass-handled lever. Instead, he spoke through a microphone to the ship's computerized engine control, which has a voice synthesizer and recognition device developed by Japan's Sodensha Electronics Ltd. The control device can comprehend eleven verbal commands, from "Full ahead" to "Full astern," given by the captain or two of his officers. To show that an order has been received, the machine repeats it in a flat voice reminiscent of Hal, the talking computer in the movie 2001.

This voice-controlled engine is one of the new applications in the rapidly emerging technology that allows machines, in a primitive fashion, to use human language. Dallas-based Texas Instruments, which pioneered low-cost talking computers with its Speak & Spell learning aid, last week unveiled Magic Wand, a machine that can read to children. It is disc-shaped like an LP record album. A youngster passes a wand attached to the disc over books that contain not only pictures and words but also bar codes on pages similar to those that now appear on grocery items, magazines and other goods. The wand reads the codes, and the unit makes the appropriate sounds. The machine can also sing, bark or even say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Texas Instruments this year will publish at least eight coded books, including Stranded E.T.'s Adventure, a spin-off from the new Steven Spielberg movie. The Magic Wand costs $120 and each book $12.

Job hunters who phoned the Softwork Voyce employment service in Cambridge, Mass., last week heard the greeting: "Hello, I am the Voyce. I am a robot helping employers and job seekers meet each other." The Voyce, which is a computer at Softwork headquarters, explains that it will compile a resume for the caller if he answers the robot's questions by pushing the proper buttons on a touch-tone phone. If the caller is using a dial phone, the Voyce tells him that it cannot hear his answers. A sample question: "Are you presently a student or a worker? Enter one if student, two if worker." The machine uses the answers to produce a resume, which Softwork sends to employers. Softwork President Joel Mannion thinks that his new service will be appealing to job hunters. Says he: "They don't have to dress up and don't have to worry about somebody intimidating or embarrassing them." That is, just as long as they Like talking to a machine.

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