Dr. Nichols: What did you have in mind?
Leonard McCoy: Perhaps the professor can use your computer?
Montgomery Scott: Computer. Computer. Ah. [McCoy hands him a mouse and he speaks over it] Hello, computer.
Dr. Nichols: Just use the keyboard.
Montgomery Scott: The keyboard. How quaint.
[Source: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Wikiquote]
Computer: Hello and Welcome!
In Star Trek IV, Scotty tried to access a (modern) PC as he would 'Computer' in his time. He expected the PC to respond to his greeting. And rightly so... had he initiated the same vocalized command back aboard his starship, the ship's 'Computer' would have immediately returned an audible response.
With the availability of speech recognition software (in our time), Scotty would be able to speak to today's computers. However, the question remains as to how today's computers would interpret and subsequently respond to his verbal commands. Keep in mind the humor found in Scotty's misconstruction of the situation and the answer is obvious:
It depends on the computer's ability to receive and successfully process a command request based on what was actually said/input.
To this end, there are software companies that now teach computers how to interact with people. The technology is driven by the highly sought after benefits of increased sales through guided (browser) search tools and lower operating costs in terms of end-user technical support. The following subsections list examples of 'live agent chat', 'virtual spokesperson' and 'video sales person' web applications.
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