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Talking to your Computer
Voice Command software that actually works. Realize Software's Realize Voice for Win95/NT4 is voice command software for Win95/NT that uses Microsoft's Whisper speech recognition engine. It's very good at what it does (although it is not a voice dictation system like IBM's US$99 ViaVoice). You don't need to train Realize Voice, although those with accents or speech impediments can train the software to improve accuracy. It can open, close and switch windows, click OK or Cancel, open your Outlook Address book or email -- even learn to open and close apps or documents you specify. Best of all , the "Lite" version (8.6MB) is freely downloadable from www.realizesoftware.com. It's US$39.95 if you decide you like the fully functional 15-day trial version.
PC Buyer's Guide spoke to Mike Somlo, President of Realize Software, and asked him why the product doesn't work properly with menu commands in Office 97 or Internet Explorer 4.0. Somlo says, "Floating menu bars present a real challenge, since they are not real menus. The only way to access the info in them is through a new Windows API layer that is very hard to use and extremely slow. We're at the point where we are doing heavy duty Windows tricks to speed this up (by injecting code into the different application's process space, for example), but the performance may not be acceptable on slow machines. More later on this..."
Somlo says the company licensed the Whisper speech recognition engine from Microsoft.
Speech technology is also expected to be provided in a future version of Windows CE (and possibly other Microsoft operating systems), although it is not clear whether it will be based on Whisper technology. In May, 1997, Microsoft licensed voice recognition technology from Lernout & Hauspie, a Belgian company specializing in speech recognition. L&H also owns Kurzweil, one of the pioneers of voice recognition. Somlo says L&H is not involved with InteractiVoice in any form whatsoever.
According to Somlo, Microsoft has a bunch of developers that have been working on speech recognition for several years together. Most of them had been at Carnegie Mellon, where they had done some leading research on speech recognition. Microsoft hired them and brought them out to Redmond to work on their stuff. Although MS licensed L&H's technology, I think that was relatively insignificant and probably had a minor impact on this version of Whisper. Microsoft's more recent venture, investing in L&H (8%) and the Flanders group in Belgium is a much more significant event, Somlo says, and shows that Microsoft is sticking with L&H and their technology and is counting on them coming through to put in their OS.
For those who want their computer to handle dictation tasks, several new titles are worth checking out:
- IBM's ViaVoice (C$89.95 and up)
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Personal Edition (various prices)
- Lotus SmartSuite (the 97 release and subsequent updates support the use of ViaVoice technology in WordPro)
- Corel WordPerfect (some versions use NaturallySpeaking for text input)
Of the bunch, NaturallySpeaking gave us by far the best results, both in terms of accuracy and speed. It also offered better correction options for those inevitable errors that produce such non sequitars as the word "lettuce" instead of "let us."
To correct a word in ViaVoice, we simply said "Correct lettuce." A list of alternate spellings showed up, which listed 'let us' as number two. We said "select two" followed by "click OK" and the change was made. You can say "click File...Save" to save files, as you can command the system to click virtually any button or menu item in almost any program. It worked remarkably well, even when speaking in a normal voice at regular conversational speeds.
IBM's ViaVoice, which also offers continuous speech, had some attractive features. An interesting option in ViaVoice is the ability for the computer to read back existing text files in your choice of voice, complete with an on-screen "agent" of your choice. The package includes male and female cartoon heads, a talking pencil, robot and a very Monty Pythonesque talking baby's head. Our favorite was an innocuous circuit board with a pulsing round light in the center, strongly reminiscent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The Lotus WordPro 97 update essentially offers ViaVoice dictation features inside that program.
We found ViaVoice's feature that allowed dictation inside Microsoft Word 97 greatly slowed down that program and seemingly decreased its reliability. We found the "WordPad" editors supplied by both IBM and Dragon to be better choices for dictating into. Of the headset microphones shipped with the products, the one bundled with IBM's ViaVoice Release 7 is the best quality.
Dragon, however, is the only company currently offering a USB mic option for those with a laptop otherwise unable to perform adequately with its onboard sound system. Known as the Preferred USB edition, this US$249 title is aimed at notebook users and includes a USB sound card.
Those with a desktop or portable PC with a decent sound system may be able to get away with the basic starter edition, "Essentials." It handles Web browsing, e-mail, and chat, and is priced at US$59.
Early versions of NaturallySpeaking and ViaVoice specified a P166 or better and 32MB of RAM as the minimum requirements. Currently, ViaVoice Release 7 requires a Pentium/233 or equivalent with 48MB of RAM (Win95/98) or 64MB RAM (NT) and 310 MB of hard disk space at minimum.
Freeware from Microsoft
Microsoft has released a 60-day trial version of Kurzweil VoiceCommands, an add-on for Office 97 that allows you to perform tasks in Microsoft Word by issuing spoken commands. With Kurzweil VoiceCommands, you can automate routine tasks, make features of Word more accessible, and eliminate time-consuming sequences of action.
For example, instead of selecting text and then clicking Convert Text to Table on the Table menu, you can say, "Convert the next three paragraphs to a table" to accomplish this task. And since you can frequently complete several steps by issuing one command, you don't need to know all the menu and dialog box names in Word.
At the end of the 60-day trial period, the software stops working. For information about the full retail version, call Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products at (800) 380-1234.
Another freely downloadable program from the company is the Microsoft Dictation Research Demonstration. It allows your computer to transcribe what you speak into any application. You can use it to write E-mail, memos, letters, and other documents. This download will give you an idea of the exciting directions where dictation technology is going by trying it out for yourself.
You can obtain it from Microsoft's Research Dept. at http://research.microsoft.com/research/srg/install.htm. It works on a P90 or better with at least 16MB of RAM. The program is 11MB in size.
Of course, you get what you pay for. In our tests, the MS Dictation software didn't work as well as the other programs mentioned here. But its lower hardware requirements and freeware status definitely make it worth a try. Just don't base your opinion of the possibilities of speech recognition on it -- at least until after you've tried NaturallySpeaking.
- Graeme Bennett
For Further Reading:
- 10/02/99 Speech Recognition- part 2
- Voice on PC: The talks continue
- [09/5/01] http://www.naturalvoices.att.com/demos/ - AT&T offers the highest quality commercially available computer speech we've heard yet.
Sales Statistics from PC World: For the past year, Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been the leading consumer speech recognition software program, with 40 percent of all unit sales, according to PC Data. (http://www.pcdata.com) Lernout & Hauspie's VoiceXpress is the second largest seller with 36 percent, trailed by IBM ViaVoice at 21 percent of sales.
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