"Good morning!" I quickly open my eyes and look around to see who has the nerve to burst into my dorm room at 6:30 in the morning. Nobody there. "Please wake up!" I now remember that my computer's new alarm clock was set to awake me for my early morning chemistry lab. As the current weather forecast is dictated to me in a female voice, I stagger over to my computer and tell it to be quiet. While I start the coffee machine, I ponder to myself if installing that speech technology program was worth it.
             Speech technology has emerged and advanced in the past five years. It ranges from microwaves that tell you when your food is finished, to computers that type and perform functions based on the user's voice commands. The technology first did not catch on to public appeal because it did not work very well; however, this feature has been creeping into more and more consumer products as it has improved.
             I was first introduced to speech technology when I purchased my Samsung cellular phone about two years ago. The first feature I wanted to try out was the voice dial option. The phone was advertised to call the number of a person or place you speak into the phone. I anxiously navigated through the menus to set up the phone numbers that I would call simply by speaking my friends' names. "Please say the name," prompts the phone. I respond with "Evan," and then it says "Please enter the number." So I punch in the number. Subsequently, I carry out this process for my other phone numbers. It didn't take all that long and was quite user friendly. Now, whenever I flip open my phone I am greeted with "Who would you like to call?" All I have to do now is say the name of the person I want to talk to. At least that is what I had hoped.
             The voice dial option was a great new feature; however it didn't always work as expected and called the incorre...