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Click on a topic below for a better understanding of the technology and to help you take advantage of the power of this type of software in general.

Dictation vs. Command & Control

There are two different types of speech recognition programs today: Dictation and Command & Control.

A dictation program lets you enter text into a document using your voice. This type of program requires a significant amount of training for each user. The training is usually done over time in addition to an initial training which means that it may take days or even weeks to achieve acceptable recognition performance.

A command & control program lets you run commands, navigate windows, dial a phone number and much more. This type of program can do potentially everything that you do on your computer. A good command & control program generally does not require training, is easy to learn, and does not require as much memory or as fast a machine as dictation programs. The accuracy of recognition is signifcantly higher due with command & control software since it is has a more limited vocabulary (in other words, it is not always listening for 100,000 or more words at a single time) than dictation.

Realize Voice provides both dictation and command modes.

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Continuous vs. Discrete

Most speech recognition software available up until only recently has required that the user pause between each word when speaking. This is referred to as discrete speech recognition. The pause gives the computer enough time to understand what was said before moving on to the next word.

Continuous speech recognition programs, on the other hand, let you speak in a more normal, fluid manner without having to pause between words. Since this is more natural way for us to speak, a speech recognition program that supports continuous recognition would be much more natural, intuitive and easy-to-use than if it supports discrete recognition. Most speech recognition programs available today support continuous recognition.

Realize Voice uses continuous speech recognition.

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Differences between Microphones

There are various types of microphones. There are desktop-based, monitor-mounted, computer-mounted, hand-held and headset microphones.  Speech recognition, while at your PC,  works best with a headset microphone. Here are some of the things to consider when deciding what kind of microphone to use:

  1. Noise Cancellation: Speech recognition works best with a noise-canceling microphone. Most headset microphones provide this capability to prevent sounds other than your voice from being heard. Noise-canceling is not found in most hand-held, monitor-mounted and other desktop-based microphones. Noise-canceling microphones are rarely distributed with a PC or sound card since they tend to cost a little more than what manufacturers are willing to pay for.

  2. Positioning: The position of the microphone relative to your mouth is very important. Speech recognizers work best when this position doesn't change. Headset microphones are always at about the same position (just off of the corner of your mouth), while positions can vary significantly with other microphones.

Type of Microphone Description
Headset You wear close-talk microphones on your head so that the microphone is very close to the corner of your mouth. These work the best for speech recognition because they have noise-cancellation. Unfortunately, the cord sometimes gets in the way.
Built-into computer, monitor or keyboard Microphones built-into computers, computer monitors or keyboards do not work well for speech recognition because they are too far away and pick up a lot of noise.
Clip-on Clip-on microphones clip onto your shirt, just below your collar. They are not as good as close-talk microphones. Also, the cord sometimes gets in the way.
Desktop Desktop microphones usually rest in a microphone stand. If you keep the microphone pointing towards you and about 6"(15cm) from your mouth, they work well, but only in quiet rooms.
Ear-piece You wear ear-piece microphones on your head so that the microphone is as close to your mouth as possible. These work well for speech recognition and dictation but not as well as close-talk microphones. Unfortunately, the cord sometimes gets in the way.
Hand-held Although hand-held microphones pick up very little noise, they are not convenient for most speech recognition purposes because they must be held 4" (10 cm) away from the user's mouth.
Handset These microphones look like normal telephone handsets, but they plug into the microphone jack rather than the telephone jack. Handsets get good accuracy.
Resting on the computer Microphones that rest on the computer usually do not work well for speech recognition because they are too far away and pick up a lot of noise.

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Working with Contact Manager Software

Contact management software is a category of software used to keep track of names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other information about people and businesses. They are sometimes included as standalone applications or as a part of a larger package.

No Importing Needed: Our software works with many of the leading contact management programs. In fact, our software is unique in that we access the contact managers (also referred to here as address books) directly rather than importing or exporting the information. This eliminates the possibility of the information being changed in one or two places and then being lost during import/export as is common when trying to synchronize information.

Our software is the only software of its kind that voice-enables contact managers along with the rest of your machine. By speaking into your microphone, and without requiring the contact manager to be running, you can dial telephone numbers directly from your contact list, find a contact, initiate a new e-mail to a contact, get driving directions to a contact, and much more.

We do not include a contact manager with any of our software. You must have one of the contact managers installed in order to take advantage of this functionality. We recommend using Outlook Express, which comes with Microsoft Internet Explorer (which they distribute for free).

 

 

 

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