PCs following voice commands isn't new. Windows comes with Speech Recognition and voice-command features, which when properly configured, can serve as a great accessibility feature. MSI plans to take voice commands a step further with what it calls "Voice Activated Motherboard" technology. The feature extends voice-commands to OS-independent ACPI functions such as powering on the PC from halted state (cold booting), suspend it, or powering down, both graceful (OS shutdown) and forceful (power off).

The feature depends on a daughterboard accessory that requires a PCI-Express x1 slot. This daugherboard connects to the motherboard using a special header found on some recent MSI motherboards that has been labelled "JDLED3", and a mic/line input. JDLED3, we assume, gives the card some low-level connectivity to the board that it can't have through HAL. The rest of the daughterboard looks to have a some legacy circuitry and an ADC. On the OS side, MSI will deploy the Voice Genie software which can be used to get the device to recognize your voice and set your own voice commands. The software probably could even be used to suspend voice recognition. Otherwise, imagine telling your Teamspeak buddy in-game to "restart" the server or a map, and the board following a system restart command that sounds identical. MSI says that this accessory will have a "more than affordable price."