God no, I was planning on using something faster than Java, I mean the closest I'd go to Java would be C#. If you look at my profile on here, you may see a bunch of stuff about Java, but that's only due to the fact that I'm being made to learn and use Java in university, not my first choice of languages tbh, I'd much rather learn C++, as it has lower level access.
I've been learning C#, PHP and some other funky languages in my own time, although I don't have a great deal of spare time. But what language would you recommend for this project? FYI I'll state my idea below.
I thought it would be really fun to delve into something like voice recognition software, where you can basically talk to the computer, and the computer in turn will do certain things. However, I was thinking about making it a little bit more advanced than just, "Hey computer, Google 'The News'", as I've already done an implementation similar enough to do that. I've done an implementation where you can essentially use the computer hands free, and I found it amazingly simple to actually make. A lot easier than what I had initially thought, however, I want to take this a step further, I want this program to be able to communicate with anything that can connect to the LAN or the computer that's running this piece of software.
I.E. I was thinking you could even have some sort of detection mechanism where the computer will even pick up when you enter the house, and then it could greet you. I was thinking you could ask the computer to turn the TV on or a CD player or one of those robotic hoovers and it would do so. I was thinking as a further implementation, you could phone the computer and ask it to do this, that or the other. I was thinking that maybe you could even implement a way where the user can add their own commands to the system.
This is why I was thinking about making it open source, I'm not exactly confident enough to say I could do all of that pretty easily and quickly. I also now this sounds like that computer thing off of Iron Man ("Jarvis", or something like that), the major difference is that the user wouldn't so much be able to chat to the system, like Iron Man can, I mean that would be a bit more advanced again. Who knows, that could even be an idea for further implementation.
But at the moment, I'd like to make an application similar enough to Siri, but it allows you to interact with an entire house or building, or office. I THINK it's also worth noting that I made this application in C#, where the functionality is pretty much already built for you, you just have to learn how to use it really.
I mean obviously you'd also need certain devices for this to work, I'd be beyond amazed if you managed to get the likes of a CD player to turn on, from the computer's command, just via a 3.5mm jack or something like that. I mean obviously you have to be realistic enough about this idea, it's not going to be some sort of almost wizardry like system where it can interact with anything that uses electricity.