In the networked, reverse-globalized world’s there’s a new definition to the ‘ word dictaphone. A service called CopyTalk allows people to dictate e-mail into their phone.

Think of it as hands-free email! You could also listen to your email, and update a contact manager while far away from your desktop, PDA or Web-based calendar.

A CopyTalk subscriber calls a toll-free number in the U.S. and dictates his email, specifies a recipient (from a personalized address book set up in advance), and fires off the message. How is this possible? Using the human interface. CopyTalk uses live customer-service people in Chennai, India, who take dictation, type in message and send it for you. The service reads back email mail to you whether you use Outlook, AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo!

What I like about the service is the human interface in the all things-automated world. Pure techies would scoff at this, saying there’s a way to bypas the human interface. But for the moment, even the best voice-recognition solutions are fraught with problems.

You may have noticed something called VoiceMode quietly making its way into cell phones –the speech-to-text solution for text messaging and email on the road. More on this later, but suffice to say that it is way too time consuming. The few tumb typers I know in Sri Lanka would beat voicemoders to a punch!

Besides, I hate the thought (and the sight) of people in public places talking loudly into their phones -especially the dorks with a bluetooth headset, waving their hands and seemingly talking to themselves. Imagine what Voice Mode would do for this!