I have played with both IBM and Dragon's new continuous speech programs.
They are both mighty impressive, and almost unbelievably clever if you ask
them to understand quite complex, academic-type ('management-type') sentences.
Where I suspect they fall down is when you want to dash off a short message
like: Dear John, Thanks for yours. See you at the club in a day or two and
we can talk things over. Yours, Jack.
This latter kind of sentence can take exasperatingly long to correct and get
right leaving you convinced even your keying would be better.
IBM speaks back to you when you question an error or a suspect word, which
some people may like. Dragon just lets you overwrite a highlit word with a
second attempt, or correction from a menu.
It's horses for courses, and I am not sure that the until recently current
opinion that voice recognitioin is for the disabled and for those who use a
fairly limited vocabulary to produce multiple similar reports &c has yet to
change. For solicitors, and for radiologists and the like it can be very
efficient indeed. I do not see many people deliberately buying the older
dalek-type software today when the continuous stuff costs relatively little
more and is obviously the way things are going.
Personally I prefer Dragon's Naturally Speaking to IBM's Via Voice, but when
I last checked the former was twice the price of the latter (ca. #150 vs
#89) but prices change all the time.
(On the other hand, if Dragon doesn't remove the intolerably priggish
looking prat from the cover of their CDROM and literature, leaning back in
his chair looking at his computer without a microphone in sight, they don't
deserve the sales they might otherwise get.)
Hope all that helps.
Hugh de G
aka the temporarily disabled Senior Lurker.
At 02:51 PM 1/4/98 +0000, you wrote:
>I have no experience of IBM product but I have used Dragon Dictate and it
>works reasonably well. I have seen but not used "Naturally Speaking"!,
>Dragon's new product which uses continuous speech recognition which is
>extremely impressive!! I have heard of one or two people who have used the
>older version and seem quite happy with it. Hope this helps.
>
>Alan Black
>
>At 07:43 04/01/98 EST, you wrote:
>>Help!
>>
>>Am in relapse of my gadgetophilia. Current manifestation is impulse to buy
>>voice recognition s/w but last vestige of conscious reason tells me it might
>>end up like many of the others i.e. in the back of the cupboard with K-Tel
>>records and electronic diary.
>>
>>Has anyone used products like IBM Simply Speaking (Gold) and if so, are they
>>any PRACTICAL use on a daily basis e.g. for dictating letters (esp. if in a
>>hurry). I just have this sneaky feeling that they may work well in the
>>showroom but be less impressive on the hard drive
>>
>>Any comments from gp-uk listers would be appreciated.
>>
>>Graham
>>
>
>
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