Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 – A Product that Speaks for Itself

Like nearly everything computer-related, voice recognition software continues to evolve. And it's getting pretty good at taking what you say and either acting on it or transcribing it. If only my kids would listen so well!

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This ever-increasing of capabilities is a very welcome occurrence, not only since such voice activation technology appears on more and more cars every year, letting drivers keep their hands on the steering wheel instead of poking around at buttons, mice or touch screens, but because it can also help you with your computer work itself. Computer-based voice recognition software, the subject of this piece can be a great tool; Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 got me through a difficult period a couple of years ago after I broke my hand and couldn't type; it rode to my rescue by letting me spend a few weeks as a dictator – at least until I'm confirmed as Emperor and can dictate even more. It wasn't perfect, and using it was a lot slower than I type, but it kept me going. Now in version 10.1, Dragon NaturallySpeaking not only works with Windows Vista 64 bit, which is a plus right out of the box if you run that operating system, but the company says it's also ready for Windows 7. I haven't tried it under Win7 yet but, in the meantime, NaturallySpeaking 10.1 runs like a hot darn under 64 bit Vista, better than many applications I have that treat the OS as if it's carrying H1N1. Ten point one is a substantial upgrade from the version I tried earlier, with new features and capabilities. I'd never be able to do them all justice unless I wanted to ignore my wife completely (hmmm…..), but beyond the new features and many interesting wrinkles, the program also seemed quicker than before (though I did no benchmark tests to ascertain it) and that's very welcome. New features include "Dragon Voice Shortcuts for Email and Calendar", which lets you create and address an email by voice – so you can merely holler “Send email to Fishface McGee ", for example, and Dragon will fire up your email program, start a new message and insert the contact names. I tried it with Mozilla Thunderbird and it worked well. "Dragon Voice Shortcuts for Web Search" lets you say "Search the Web for financial management resources" (Nuance's example) and then it pats your computer on the bum and sends it on its merry way. "Voice Shortcuts for Desktop Search" does the same thing for your computer, searching out documents, emails and web browsing history. I use NaturallySpeaking primarily to recognize voice notes I've made on my digital voice recorder – a recorder whose own software won't touch Vista 64 bit with a ten byte pole. Alas, since Dragon wants to interact with my recorder's software, this causes a bit of an issue. Fortunately, the recorder will create or convert voice files to MP3's I can drag and drop into a folder on my main computer. From there, I can take advantage of a handy little utility application Dragon has included called AutoTranscribe Folder Agent, which you can set to monitor a particular folder and recognize automatically the voice files you store there, outputting them to a folder as text documents. It works pretty well and though it isn't perfect, it does a pretty good job, especially considering that I often threw voices at it for which it hasn't been trained, people I interviewed using the voice recorder. The apps also works well for interviews I conduct and record via Skype and its Pamela add-on, with the same caveat about strange voices. You have to learn how to use the software, of course – or, in reality, teach it to use you. The Professional version I got also comes with a headset to interface you with the computer, and it works fine. I've used better, but I can't think of a better headset that was bundled in the box. The best way to exploit NaturallySpeaking, once the training has been attended to, is to gather your thoughts before speaking – which might be beneficial in one's life away from the computer, too – and then speak clearly and not too quickly. The software seems to work better if you speak in larger blocks of words, too. Nuance says the product is "Up to 99% Accurate and Three Times Faster than Typing", which may be true under ideal circumstances or with a whole bunch of training, but that requires more patience than I have, so my accuracy rate and speed is lower. It still beats typing the whole shebang in again, though! The recognition process can be quite slow, which is a two-edged sword. If you're dictating, it can be frustrating having to wait for it to catch up with you, but on the other hand it gives you time to marshal your thoughts for your next massive utterance. You can use it with such programs as Microsoft Word, dictating directly into it or into a separate window, and it also worked with my email program, though it wasn't as good at formatting as it was in Word. The more I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking the better it seems to get, especially since I break down once and a while and take a half hour or so out to train it a bit more. One of these days it'll listen and react to my words better than my kids. Dragon 10.1 is compatible to varying degrees with a wide variety of voice recorders and software applications, and you can check out which is which by visiting their website at HYPERLINK "http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking" [url=http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking]http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking[/url]. This version definitely seems better, and faster, than the previous version I tried, but such technology still has a way to go. Part of that can be blamed on computers themselves, which remain stubbornly stupid despite their designers' best efforts to date. Subsequent generations of the voice recognition concept are sure to get even better, though, and should eventually be as good as having an honest to goodness secretary – or computer operator – around to do the job for you. In the meantime, NaturallySpeaking 10.1 is pretty darn good.