Java Glossary : Dragon Naturally Speaking

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A software program that lets you type at 160 words per minute by speaking to your computer in perfectly natural continuous speech. I saw a demo of this, and it is finally ready for prime time. In the demo, it never once made an error, even when the members of our Vancouver PC user Society audience tried to give it difficult phrases. It is ever clever about homonyms like to, too and two.

To work well, you need a high quality noise-cancelling microphone and a USB microphone pod. A pod is a $90.00 USD external sound card that attaches to a USB port. This way the analog-to-digital happens outside the electrically noisy computer case. Even the pod leaves you susceptible to electrical noise from your monitor. You might go for an LCD monitor to reduce that interference further.

You need a 700+ MHz computer and 256+ MB ram. Your productivity is greatly magnified by voice macros. You can arrange that any word type any series of keystrokes. Further you can create macros with parameters, loops and other logic. Unlike keystroke macros, there is no practical limit to how many macros you can define or how many you can remember. My next major computer purchase will be the hardware and software for the pro version of this product. It can be used for word processing, programming, filling in tables and spreadsheets, anything you might do with a keyboard. The only things it can't do are mouse intensive tasks like Paint shop Pro. Speakeasy Solutions create macro packages and special purpose interfaces to Dragon Naturally Speaking Pro. They also sell headsets, pods and handheld solid-state digital recorders. You can wander off, record your thoughts, then plug your handheld into the computer for transcribing. For example, a Sony Digital Dication device is $300.00 USD , a 64MB memory stick (6 hours), is $50.00 USD , and an adapter to let your computer read the memory stick is $70.00 USD . There are USB, PC card and fake floppy interfaces.

For an app to permit voice editing, it needs to link with the voice interface. Usually all you must do to make an app fully voice aware is link it with an object file the Speakeasy people will give you. You don't have to write any special code. Without this, you can still do data entry, but editing is not as clever. I am trying to talk the makers of my favourite software packages into doing this.

It comes in 6 editions: Legal Edition $1000.00 USD , Medical Edition $1000.00 USD , Professional Edition $700.00 USD , Preferred Edition $200.00 USD , Standard Edition $100.00 USD , Essentials Edition $60.00 USD . The less expensive versions have fewer feature and can run on smaller machines.

Downsides

You need an office by yourself. Your babbling will disturb others, and other people talking will interfere with your work. It is a strain on your voice. You can't talk non-stop all day long without strain. You need then to alternate between voice and key entry to give your voice a rest.

CloudGarden SAPI4-SAPI5 (text to speech and speech reconition interfacing) ¤ IBM's Speech For Java

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