by NANCY GONGLIKWANYEOHEEEEEEEH, Alternate Reality News Service Technology Writer
Germaine Clement (not the actor, but, be honest, you always insert an "r" into his name when you see it, don't you?) intended to write, "The quarterly annual reports indicate a shortening extension of the long term prospects for growth attrition, but this does not mean that active waiting is called for in this casual crisis." What actually appeared in the final document was: "If I have to write one more sentence like that, I'm going to hang myself with Drano!"
Clement didn't catch the error in the annual shareholders' prospectus for Xerx International (formerly Cathair Consolidated) because nobody had told him that the company had installed Psychrect 2000 (pronounced: psych-resht twenty-aught, not the way you were thinking) on all of its computers. (The intern in the editorial department who should have caught the error was too busy studying for her kindergarten finals to notice it.)
AutoCorrect functions in word processing programmes had become increasingly unreliable, making such mistakes as: "one hearse town" instead of "one horse town;" "Balkan side robber" instead of "vulcanized rubber," and; "responsible government" instead of "Conservative majority." A new approach to digital language production was clearly called for.
The Psychrect 2000 jumped into those breaches, taking a typical auto-correct programme and combining it with emerging technologies that can read what a writer is thinking. When a word is misspelled on the screen, the software scans the typist's brainwaves to determine the word the writer actually had in mind, and accordingly corrects it (or the phrase it is in, or , apparently, the sentence the phrase is in) in the document.
The Psychrect 2000 has two components: a harness that fits snugly over the user's head (in friendly brown, orange and oregano colours) and the software that implements the corrections. "We experimented with a wireless mind-reading system," stated Mutant Technologies CEO Theodoric Monangahela, "but, in most cubicle farms, workers are so close together that the hardware had trouble distinguishing between them. We were responsible for more than one sexual harassment suit, let me tell you!"
And, the part of the harness that goes in the writer's mouth? "Oh, that doesn't really have a function," Monangahela allowed, "but the editors we worked with in designing the Psychrect 2000 insisted we include it. We did draw the line at hanging a bag of oats off the harness, though - writers have some dignity! We assume. I mean, they must have some - maybe just a little...don't they?"
The Psychrect 2000 is the first product Mutant Technologies - which specializes in combining existing tech in new ways - has brought to market. The company is currently working on a combination cellphone/carving knife "for busy hungry people who don't have time to cook and talk on the phone," Monangahela stated. "It's a brilliant concept - what could possibly go wrong?"
We'll have to wait for the Consumer Reports evaluation before we can answer that question. The problem with the Psychrect 2000 that we can report on is that it reads the thoughts of writers too well, culling corrections from parts of their brains far deeper than the conscious part that they use to write with. A correction in the New York Times, for example, stated that, "when we recently reported that 'House majority leader John Boehner was a preening, self-important moron,' our reporter actually meant to write that 'House majority leader John Boehner was on vacation for a week.'"
I, myself, have run afoul of this aspect of the Psychrect 2000. In an article I wrote last month on the phone app Angry Ugly Ducklings, the following sentences appeared: "Did I really just spend six hours playing this thing? It's worse than crack!" What I meant to write, of course, was: "The game is out Tuesday."
[EDITOR'S NOTE: suck it up, Nancy! Psychrect 2000 is way cheaper than human proofreaders, and, anyway, I'm learning a hell of a lot about my writers that I didn't know. A hell of a lot! Speaking of which, the next time you're on Earth Prime you must stop by my office for a chat...]
Because of this tendency, psychic autocorrect programmes have been shown to decrease productivity, the opposite of their intended effect. "I had to slow down when I was typing to make sure that I didn't make any mistakes that could be misinterpreted," Clement explained. "It took me three hours just to type out the notice that I was quitting my job!"
Monangahela waved his hand dismissively. "Kinks," he stated. "Mere kinks. I have no doubt that we will be able to work them out. If not, well, perhaps we'll revisit the issue of the bag of oats peripheral!"
PART TWO: a foolproof technology for assuring perfect spelling every time? Next week, the Alternate Reality News Service explores the most bizarre - and bizarrely useful - writing aid yet created by man: the dictionary.