Do you use voice recognition to talk to your computer?

chinneychinney
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
This is an area of interest of mine. A few years ago our sympathetic office manager thought that it just didn't make sense for his employees to be typing all the time - so he bought DragonSpeak for WordPerfect for our PC work computers. We all said "great". We all tried it. We all gave up.



I get the sense that voice recognition, despite all of the promise some thought it showed, just has not lived up to expectations for anyone.



But, am I wrong? Are there actually users out there who are making practical use of voice recognition? And by practical use, I am talking about more than just playing around with it for fun. I mean actually using it to control your computer and to enter data. Is anyone at least using Speakable Items to give basic commands to their computer? Is anyone actually giving many of their commands by Speakable Items. Is anyone occasionally using DragonSpeak or ViaVoice to enter text with voice recognition? Is anyone regularly entering text this way?



Also, if you have any thoughts about the future of voice recognition, I'd like to know.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    I have played with speakable items but I haven't found it useful. Trying to get the computer to tell you a knock knock joke loses appeal when you have to repeat "computer, tell me a joke" several times".
  • Reply 2 of 19
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    I've toyed with it, but it doesn't work very well even for basic commands. Also, I have to talk just a bit louder than is comfortable for it to register properly.
  • Reply 3 of 19
    dog almightydog almighty Posts: 464member
    Only if there's no one else around to talk to.
  • Reply 4 of 19
    aquaticaquatic Posts: 5,602member
    Hehe. I would if it worked better. Is Speech different in Panther?
  • Reply 5 of 19
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    More or less what I expected - only two of sixteen people who responded so far indicate regular or even occasional use. But it would have been interesting to know how exactly those two use it.



    A couple of comments about what a few people have posted. I think that the "shouting at it" issue is addressed by having a headset microphone. That's what they got us at the office when they tried it a few years ago and the microphone at least addressed that issue. With respect to whether the technology will improve - I think that it probably will, but I wonder if that is the issue. Maybe people just don't want to 'talk' at their computers.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    matt dangermatt danger Posts: 170member
    it doesn't work well for me at all...
  • Reply 7 of 19
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    voice recognition is sooooo Y2k!
  • Reply 8 of 19
    mac man 020581mac man 020581 Posts: 632member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Matt Danger

    it doesn't work well for me at all...



    Same for me. I tryed to use the voice recognition software in OS X to play chess, it barely worked at all, it always gave me the "?". \
  • Reply 9 of 19
    merovingianmerovingian Posts: 436member
    I simply don't use it, because I have to speak in an American accent, and I don't have an American accent - I'm an Aussie, (pronounced "o-zee", not "or-see" -- how many times I've heard it mis-pronounced)!



    Hence it's too much effort to put on an accent, and I feel like an idiot doing so. m.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Doesn't seem to have very good practical use for day to day. I have used ViaVoice before and thought I would install it and probably use it to dictate reports for school and stuff. As I thought about it more I realized that I don't ever have rough drafts to read to the computer. I make them on the computer and then revise and edit on there. It's really very nice, can't imagine trying to edit my own handwriting anymore. My handwriting is horrible as it is let along things crossed out and lines drawn to other parts of the page. Glad we don't have to show a rough draft anymore in school
  • Reply 11 of 19
    chychchych Posts: 860member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Merovingian

    I simply don't use it, because I have to speak in an American accent, and I don't have an American accent - I'm an Aussie, (pronounced "o-zee", not "or-see" -- how many times I've heard it mis-pronounced)!



    Hence it's too much effort to put on an accent, and I feel like an idiot doing so. m.



    Actually, last year a few guys from Apple gave a talk at my school about the speech recognition in Jaguar (also about the CHUD tools). Point is, the guy who gave the talk on it was Aussie and spoke as such; he ran the speech recognition quite well though. Apparently they pre-train the speech recognition system to many different accents of english and it magically figures out what you say.



    Then again I could never get "Tell me a joke" working consistently, and I think I have the standard 'american accent'.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    There isn't one standard American accent. Somone from Florida is much different then the unrecognized state of Missouri. New Yorkers who don't pronounce their R's are very different from a valley girl from Cali. Speech recognition is so complex it's crazy. I wish I knew more about it, but alas I think it would either be too complicated or dead boring if you actually started to get technical into it.
  • Reply 13 of 19
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    Actually, I used it very regularly in the past on my PC. I do a lot of writing and when I am at home in the quiet of my office, it is very good. PC voice recognition, that is. Feature for feature, the Mac software is five plus years behind the PC versions. Also, there are some very powerful choices on the PC side. If all you have is Mac experience or ancient PC experience, then you have really not experienced the current state of the art in voice recognition. I frankly do not believe that the Mac will ever catch up in this area.



    I use both platforms, by the way.
  • Reply 14 of 19
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Mac Voyer

    Actually, I used it very regularly in the past on my PC. I do a lot of writing and when I am at home in the quiet of my office, it is very good. PC voice recognition, that is. Feature for feature, the Mac software is five plus years behind the PC versions. Also, there are some very powerful choices on the PC side. If all you have is Mac experience or ancient PC experience, then you have really not experienced the current state of the art in voice recognition. I frankly do not believe that the Mac will ever catch up in this area.



    I use both platforms, by the way.



    But isn't ViaVoice available on both Mac and PC?
  • Reply 15 of 19
    mac voyermac voyer Posts: 1,294member
    Yes, Viavoice is available on the Mac. But it just stands to illustrate my point that Apple is way behind in the area. The Mac version is a joke compared to the PC version. As I said before, the Mac is about five years behind and I doubt it will ever catch up. Yes, market share matters.
  • Reply 16 of 19
    sir mac o' the islessir mac o' the isles Posts: 157member
    I have tried voice recognition and it never bluidy works. Whatever I tell the computer tae do it ends up telling me a knock knock joke: a bluidy feeble one at that. Voice recognition has nae future - put your bets on eye-contact language whereby rolling the eyes controls the a pair o' independent pointers on screen. An accomplished eyemac operator moving each roving orb asychronously can input up tae 5 exabytes in full stereo before lunch..
  • Reply 17 of 19
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Sir Mac o' the Isles

    I have tried voice recognition and it never bluidy works. Whatever I tell the computer tae do it ends up telling me a knock knock joke: a bluidy feeble one at that. Voice recognition has nae future - put your bets on eye-contact language whereby rolling the eyes controls the a pair o' independent pointers on screen. An accomplished eyemac operator moving each roving orb asychronously can input up tae 5 exabytes in full stereo before lunch..



    Well, no wonder it couldn't understand you.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    rick1138rick1138 Posts: 938member
    I use voice recognition to open, close and switch applications, it works extremely well - it is the fastest way to do it.
  • Reply 19 of 19
    chinneychinney Posts: 1,019member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Rick1138

    I use voice recognition to open, close and switch applications, it works extremely well - it is the fastest way to do it.



    Do you find that you have to talk quite loudly and distinctly at it, or do you use a normal voice tone?
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