Beyond the basic connected voice-command stuff — which you can of course already do with a device like the Amazon Echo, for example — the idea is that Olly will also be doing some autopiloting of your domestic lifestyle needs, as it gets to know you better and learns your habits.
On Monday, Skype, a service that connects voice calls over the Internet, said its customers in North America could use their computers to call traditional telephone lines anywhere else in the United States and Canada free until the end of the year.
Mr. Asmundson said all Bell companies, including BellSouth, would have to reposition themselves, a task he predicted would be quite difficult: "BellSouth's problem is that it is trying to go from being your father's telephone company to a company that connects voice and data.
If only the staff shakeup happened earlier; if only the effort in the caucus states had more resources; if only Hillary had let loose with the authentic female, connecting voice she found in the last three months of the campaign.
Dial Tone Operator is from her project about female telephone operators of the 1950s, exploring how their work connecting voices from disparate parts of the UK was eventually usurped by the automated telephone signal.
It starts with the social graph, connecting voices to their audience.
Gestalt's in-house Internet telephone system is a money-saver, but the company is also able to offer new services to its customers by connecting voice-mail systems to different pages in a Web site.
"I was fascinated by women telephone operators, and in particular their role as 'speech weavers,' connecting voices and serving as a conduit for telecommunication," explains Satz.
"Land's End doesn't have to live with the idea that Verizon isn't going to let them be connected by voice," he said.
A lot of the world doesn't have this sort of infrastructure and is not connected for voice, video and Internet service.
