From Pogue's blog.
"My wife and I discovered Dragon NaturallySpeaking about 8 years ago, and have been using it successfully ever since-- not for dictation, but as a communication aid. My wife is deaf; her hearing loss began about 25 years ago (we are in our late 60's) and she has become a skillful lip reader to compensate. That works pretty well in face-to-face communication, but is not helpful in many other situations, such as when we are driving; when I drive, I give her a side view, which isn't clear enough.
"I've made brackets to hold a laptop both in our car and motor home. I use a lapel mike to speak; NaturallySpeaking transcribes what I say. She reads what I'm saying, and then responds by voice. When we got this working, it was the first time in 15 years that we could converse on the road."
Dragonsoft takes a lot of training. More than I could bare. I had the same trouble with Via Voice. I guess I should have bought the UK version, it may have handled my accent better.
ReplyDeleteThe other weird thing, there is (was) no Dragonsoft for software engineers. There are medical and legal editions, but there is not one which can dictate C or assembly language, never mind Verilog.
I got a Goldtouch keyboard and switched to a left handed mouse. This worked just as well, if not better, but still was a $200 solution.
I've had no luck with dictation software either, I've tried everything.
ReplyDeleteBut for some people it works beautifully.
This is an application where typos and misspellings don't really matter. It probably was easier to "train the wife" than the software, and most likely gives them many an occasion for a good laugh along the way. An invaluable deal for them anyway, I'd say. One of those cases that kinda makes the whole technology thing worth the while.
ReplyDeleteTruly an ingenious idea. Heck, it may even be that this is the only application for which this technology actually works.
ReplyDelete