What is the news item mainly about? [originaltext] These days searching for a

These days searching for a number in a five centimeter thick telephone directory seems very old fashioned. Voice recognition systems are becoming more and more common and efficient: the best of them apparently recognize 49 out of every 50 words. These devices save companies a huge amount of money. Stephen Evans in New York has been talking to the machines and to the men who design them. I had a bit of a Basil Fawlty moment, the other day. I rang 411, the American directory enquiries which now uses a voice recognition system. I told the machine I wanted the number for "Harlem Auto Mall" and she—for this machine had a female voice—replied "Harlem Public School 154". No doubt like lots of people, I found myself ranting. Machines, you see, have personalities, and banks, phone companies, railways and all kinds of alleged help-lines are spending a lot of money trying to find out what kinds of voices to give the machines that speak to us, the public, on their behalf.