Voice-activated cops a bad call

Police in Lancashire say that by the end of the year people could soon have their own virtual bobby in the home. Not a real bobby, of course, just a gadget that will make regular announcements about crime-fighting operations in your area. Which I am sure will never become irritating at all.

More than that, though, these devices will also make use of voice-activated technology allowing people to report crimes as they happen, without having to go to the bother of actually reporting them to a human being. It's not hard to see why this is attractive to police forces. These gadgets means fewer phone calls from the public, which of course means they can employ fewer staff.

The question is, though, have the brains behind this ever used a voice-activated service? My credit card provider has just switched to one for bill payments, and let’s say the results have been disappointing. Under the boring, old-fashioned system, you pressed one for statement services, two to pay the bill, and then entered your bank card number. Easy-peasy, done in a minute.

Under the new, voice-activated service, it has taken me 15 minutes to pay my bill. This is probably in part due to my inability to speak hologram fluently, and in part due to me screaming my commands in frustration.

Can you imagine how this might work in an emergency?

“Help, I’m being robbed!”

“Hello Rob, how may I help you?”

“A robber has a knife to my throat!”

“Yes, Rob, your wife is allowed to vote. Say ‘yes’ if you would like another service, if not, say ‘I am done’.”

"I am done all right."

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ALSO facing a shortage of personnel is the British Army, which has also resorted to, shall we say, unconventional means to fill the gap.

It only seems like a couple of years ago that the Army was making thousands of experienced, battle-hardened warriors redundant, and closing down historic regiments which had been around for centuries.

Now, to plug the gap, some corporate whizzkids have decided that the old “Be the Best” recruitment slogan was outdated and elitist.

Of course it was. What about people who don't want to "Be the Best"? How about those who would rather just sit on the sofa in a onesie staring at their smart phone? Talk about discrimination.

To attract millennials, the Army has produced some soppy online videos that look a bit like the opening credits for the Generation Game during Brucie’s second stint, circa 1990. They encourage would-be recruits to talk about their feelings, and say it’s all right to cry if you’re upset.

So next time the Argentinians, Putin, Isis, or whoever our enemies are these days, decide they're up for another war, and deploy a load of hard nuts to blow our heads off, we'll retaliate with a group of sensitive folk in touch with their emotional side.

They’ll probably use It Ain’t Half Hot Mum as a training video.

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EXCITING news from the Government, which is spending millions to ensure all mainline trains have “superfast wi-fi connectivity”. Apparently, this means every single passenger will be able to watch videos at the same time, which is great news for ticket inspectors who will have to interrupt every passenger from their viewing.

Can you imagine anything more hateful? Whole carriages of people lost in their own little world, a cacophony of whistling noises emanating from the headphones like tinnitus for anybody not wishing to participate.

The work involves laying hundreds of miles of fibre-optic cables alongside the tracks, so you can imagine the disruption.

Call me a luddite, but wouldn’t you prefer the money to be spent on making sure the trains were clean, punctual and reliable?