Dragon NaturallySpeaking

Today I hope to demonstrate the product Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which is capable of translating your spoken language into written texts for various kinds of documents. If the demonstration goes well enough perhaps you could imagine yourself using such a product. The company Nuance that produces the product claims you can produce the documents 3 times as fast as you can by typing.

I first became aware of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a visit to Fry's electronics store. There was a man standing in the big aisle where you enter the store with headphones on. He was demonstrating the product. I was amazed at the fluency with which he was able to speak, and the speed with which the words appeared on the screen. The demonstration was memorable for me and after a few more trips to the store I purchased version 4. That was 1999. This demonstration is using version 13 which came out in 2014.

Over the years a number of competitors come and gone. Currently Google is pretty well known for accepting search commands that are voice activated. When you use Google voice, translation occurs in the cloud, not on your own computer. I have tried to use Google voice to produce documents and I miss the various aids to making corrections.

When I first started using voice dictation, it required training for an hour which involved having you read text into the computer from various forms of literature. My early attempts to produce documents contained so many errors that the document was more hilarious than sensible. Over the years the requirements of training have shrunk until for many people no training at all may be necessary. People make statements about an accuracy rate of something like 95%. Generally I think it understands me better than my friends do.

There are many versions of Dragon naturally speaking. My partner Edith's Doctor uses the medical version with it's medical vocabulary to summarize her doctors visits, with his instructions to stay healthy. There are many different deals for many different prices. I expect to pay $99 for a package with headphones and a CD disc. Macintosh versions will have different version numbers.