Tech: Voice recognition equipment

Subject: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 02:55 PM

A friend of mine has MS and is experiencing difficulty typing, which is creating problems as her work involves writing. Apparently you can actually buy something now that converts your voice to words on paper. She thinks they are expensive, and grants arent easy to come by.(UK) Now, how efficient are these things, and how much do they cost? Anybody know anything about this?
   Thought I would make a few enquiries, but dont know where to start. But Mudcat always seems to be the first port of call for knowledge.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 03:01 PM

THere are various software programmes which attempt to do this. We once experimented with one called ViaVoice. At the start it was very poor, but you can train it to recognise your own pronunciation of words, and it did start to improve. It also allows you to use voice commands to control certain computer functions. Unfortunately we had a problem with Windows, and after sorting that out, we had to uninstall ViaVoice, but it then wouldn't let us reinstall. For some strange reason the computer thinks that it is still there.
I suggest that your friend tries to get hold of some evaluation copies of different programmes and sees which (if any) do the job.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 03:06 PM

Talk to special - needs professionals about the state of the art. I have seen them working perfectly well for a wholly blind person (reading input to voice-out) and I have seen 90% or better accuracy in voice-to-text after some grooving in as described. Bit the field is always advancing.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 03:09 PM

Thanks for this info. Some sort of ballpark price estimate would interest me... is it worth thinking of a whip-round in the pub, or are we talking more bank-robbing?

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 03:54 PM

vIA vOICE IS ibm (bUGGER cAPSLOCK)
Via Voice is from IBM and seems to be priced anbout $99 online, but reduced in sales to much lower. I don't know about in the flesh...
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 08:35 PM

I find ViaVoice adequate, adn got my last one (Millennium edition, so a bit out of date) for twelve quid with the mic, new!

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: vectis
Date: 29 Nov 03 - 08:59 PM

I am a special needs teacher and my dyslexic and dyspraxic students use Dragon Dictate. You can navigate the web with it, use it to operate almost all the toolbar and it's recognition accuracy is about 98% once trained.
Naturally Speaking preferred version 7 is £130 at the moment and is what I use at home.
There is the standard version which is about £45/50 and it works fine.
There is and expensive professional version costing around £400.
All versions can have a number of different users so it can be used by the whole family.
I prefer it to Via Voice and Kurzweil.
It is from Scansoft and available through computer shops like PC World. Buy it from the web and look for the best deal you'll save lots.
Hope this helps, PM me if you want more details.
Good luck
Mary

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 03:57 AM

Don Firth has used some of this software, and some time back recommended a program for a friend of mine here in Texas to try. I believe it worked out well--maybe he'll see this thread, or you might want to PM him.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: okthen
Date: 30 Nov 03 - 07:59 AM

Greg, is your friend registered with the MS society? They have all types of grants available for their members and if this sort of aid doesn't qualify I'd like to know what does!
They could have been asked for this before and may well offer advice on the best program to get, however, the phrase "horses for courses" may well apply and what works for one person may not for another.
If all else fails I have an old copy of a voice recog. prog. (somewhere!) which I could dig out and send, it was a freebie with something about 18 months ago so it's probably not leading edge.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 01:01 PM

Has anyone tried any of the Olympus recorders? These are supposed to recognise what different voices are saying, though I'll wait for the evidence of my own eyes. You use them for recording - meetings and so on; I don't yet know if they record from the phone, which would be handy for journos - and then they transcribe the recording into text.

Or possibly tnasfbrkfe io notai extay. I'll know tomorrow when i try one out, I hope.

For the friend with MS, by the way, I know a journalist with wrist probs who uses Dragon Naturally Speaking, and she says it's ace.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 01:28 PM

a lawyer client of mine uses Dragon Naturaly Speaking and is very satisfied.

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 07:44 PM

If you have a newer installation of Office, there may be some "built-in" speech recognition capabilities that could be useful. It appears to be available for any Windows operating system (Win98SE and on) but does require OfficeXP or later. The stuff provided is intended for dictating into Office programs, and additional software/hardware would be needed for full control of your machine, but it might be worth looking at what's already there.

I haven't gone very far with this, but you could start with:

WD2002: Speech Recognition Frequently Asked Questions

The above article cites:

For additional information, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
     278927 WD2002: General Information on the Installation and Configuration of Speech and Handwriting Recognition
     283160 WD2002: Handwriting Recognition Frequently Asked Questions
     295947 HOW TO: Troubleshoot Speech Recognition Problems in Word 2002

For the most up-to-date information about speech recognition developments at Microsoft, please browse to the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/speech/

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Jan 04 - 07:57 PM

A couple years ago bought a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and I would say that this should do the job fairly nicely. I liked it well enough that I got an upgrade for it (once I had a computer that could handle the upgrade—Dragon needs a fair amount of memory to function properly).

It takes a little getting used to, and it can be a bit frustrating at first. There is a definite learning process. Not only do you have to learn how to use it, it has to figure you out as well. You need to go through a training routine (supplied) before you can really begin to use it. It has you read a number of documents that it supplies (excerpts from various works) so it can get used to how you read them, and at the same time, let you get used to a few little amenities such as speaking clearly and in a conversational tone. If you speak slowly, separating words as if you are dictating to a computer, it gets it all screwed up. It wants you to talk the way you normally would (provided, of course, you don't normally talk like you have a mouth full of cabbage). Then it wants to read some documents you have written so it can get used to your writing style and your vocabulary, adding words you use that it doesn't have in its own vocabulary list. All of this takes maybe an hour or two. And it's a good idea to repeat the training sessions every now and then.

It's kind of neat and a bit weird to just talk into a microphone (by the way, a headset comes with the software) and watch your words appear on the screen. When you first start using NaturallySpeaking, you'll probably find it somewhat frustrating. You say one thing and the screen shows something else -- close, perhaps, but no cigar -- so you have to keep going back and correcting words here and there, sometimes whole phrases (just say "select [wrong word or phrase]" and then say the correct word or phrase over again). Sometimes it won't recognize a word, but you can add vocabulary. Once you and "the Dragon" get used to each other (a couple of weeks, maybe) it gets pretty accurate. The more you use it, the more accurate it gets.

Even after using it for awhile it can be a bit frustrating, because you do have to proofread your stuff carefully. I think the peak of frustration is when it gets sufficiently accurate that it gets almost everything right except for a word or two here and there. If you then give it a cursory read-through, you're liable to miss an error that may change the meaning of a whole sentence. So you gotta proofread. After using it for awhile I got so irritated with having to make these corrections that I decided the program was a waste of time and money -- until I noticed that even with having to take the time to make the corrections, I was cranking out almost twice as much corrected wordage in the same amount of time as I did when I was just typing (and I'm a reasonably fast touch typist). So I decided, what the heck, man, I'll roll with it! I don't use it all the time. For short stuff (Mudcat posts, for example) I just use the keyboard. But for longer things like writing magazine articles or working on my book, I use it quite a bit.   And it's really cool to just sit back and dictate. And another nice feature is that if you say "read sentence" or "read paragraph" or "read document," "Jennifer" will read it back to you. Her reading is a bit stilted, but she's a real help in letting you spot incorrect words.

This should do the job very nicely for anyone who has difficulty typing (or, for that matter, for anyone who's just a lazy slob, like me). I don't know what it would cost in the UK, but a couple of years ago I paid a bit less than $100 (US) here in the States, then another $99 recently to upgrade to version 7 (current). I notice that it's listing for $199 now.

It does require a fairly hot computer. Mine is a Pentium IV 2.4 MHz with 512 MB RAM. I've read that the minimum specs they list on the box are just that: minimum. It will work v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y with just minimum specs.

I hope this helps.

Don Firth

(By the way, I "wrote" this using Dragon, so if any of it reads funny, blame it on the lizard.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Voice recognition equipment
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Jan 04 - 09:17 AM

Here at Kingston (upon Thames) University we make the Dragon software available to special needs students.