PocketPCReviews Reviews Scansoft's NaturallySpeaking 7.3

[Janak Parekh]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pocketpcreviews.net/' target='_blank'>http://www.pocketpcreviews.net/</a><br /><br /></div>Ordinarily, I don't post reviews of desktop software here, but the latest version of NaturallySpeaking has a cool addition -- a Pocket PC recorder tool that you can use to record speech which can then be recognized later on your desktop.<br /><br />"Reviewing the latest version of ScanSoft’s Dragon NaturallySpeaking reveals an unexpected bonus for Pocket PC users: the program installs a voice recorder on your PDA, allowing you to dictate all you want whilst away from the computer."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/parekh-20040314-DragonNaturally.jpg" /><br /><br />Of course, I'd ultimately like voice recognition on the Pocket PC, but until then here's one possible solution.

[hotweiss]

If only voice recognition software worked...

[yuit]

It'd be cool if NaturallySpeacking allowed you to transmit the sound from the voice recorder on the ppc in real time to your PC, and the PC can do voice recognition in real time and transmit the text back to the ppc. It should be possible with the bandwidth wifi offers...

[Jonathon Watkins]

If only voice recognition software worked...

It does actually - really well. My Minister started using voice recognition 4 years ago and it works like a charm - the sermons just fly out of the computer. :wink:

This looks promising, lets see if IBM responds with an addition to Via Voice. Now if only a few more PPC manufactures would put mic ports on the devices for some decent noise cancelling microphone input. :?

[epc]

Voice dictation, works well if one takes the time to train & correct it. Have used Via Voice for several years and it is very good.
What is interesting is that Scansoft also handles Via Voice and all the support for IBM. Does anyone know of a possible merger of the softwares? It seems they are very similar in functions,presently.
Also IBM ships with an Andrea mike.

[Jeff Rutledge]

This looks promising, lets see if IBM responds with an addition to Via Voice.

Indeed. My first iPAQ 3650 had IBM Via Voice. It was actually pretty good (not as good as Voice Command is now...but not two years worse by any means). They kind of fell off the map in the PPC space after that though.

[topps]

What I would be interested to know is this? How well designed is the PPC client?

The particular feature that I believe to be essential in getting this to work is to have the PPC client work like a true dictaphone. I think that more users are interested in this than in real-time transmission of the files to the desktop - yes, that would be cool...but more users would be happy just to use their PPC as a full function recorder.

By full function, there are two aspects of doing this that most PPC clients fall down on...Pause/Restart on the same sound file. And inserting sound into an existing sound file ie. resuming again after some playback.

Only one app that I know does the Pause thing properly. Most create a new sound file when you start recording again after a Pauses. And I'm not sure if there is any of them that allows you to continue recording in the same sound file after you have recorded, paused, listened to what you said and then resume recording.

If this latter functionality can be integrated with simple file transfer to a desktop then it will fulfill the needs for most users.

[hotweiss]

I tried Via Voice 10 which was supposed to be the most accurate voice recognition software at the time (I think it still is the most accurate) and found it to be just terrible. For voice recognition software to be used as a practical tool it needs to be at least 99.99% effective, 90% just makes it slower than typing. I considered that it could be my voice and speach pattern, so I let some of my friend's try it. No luck. Voice recognition needs another couple of years, it already has come a long way. I remember using Via Voice 4 where you had to speak like a robot...

[Jeff Rutledge]

I haven't used Naturally Speaking, but I have tried Via Voice (I think v10) on the PC. IIRC, you had to "speak" your punctuation. For example, a typical dictation would go something like:

"good morning comma new paragraph how are you today question mark"

Does Naturally Speaking act the same way? If so, would you have to dictate this way to your PPC? 8O

That would turn some heads if you're overheadr. :lol:

[Tom W.M.]

I've just asked my father (who's a long-time Dragon NaturallySpeaking junkie) and he wasn't too sure about how well this would work. He was concerned about the sample rate of the mic. Anyone used this? What about the sample rates of PPCs—are they very high?