Tech Question.....

[Stoney]

Got a quick question, if someone would be kind enough to help me out!!

One of my bosses at work wants speech to text technology where you can just got the microphone and a program just automatically dictates your works into text. So what I really want to find out is:

# What programs can be used???
# Does it really work???
# Does it save time???
# Rough cost of setting up???

All our PC’s are currently XP and we use the Microsoft office suite for all our work.

Any information you could help me out with would be greatly appreciated, as I got no real idea where to start apart from google and that just took my 30 mins for a wild goose chase to pages with big words on em

Thanks,
Stoney

[Solus]

yes the software works, but i beleive you need particular hardware to do it. im not sure though.

assuming that you have the hardware and software required, you'd need to account for a learning period, while the software adjusts to your voice, much like a PDA has to get used to your handwriting to generate text from it. i know people who have used it and it works well but that learning period might be a bit long, im not sure.

hope that helps.

[Londo Mollari]

the technology does exist however it is not all that great

it makes mistakes

it finds it hard to distinguish between words with the same sound but different meanings e.g. write, right, wright etc

it makes mistakes due to accents (from your sig i can see your austalian) assuming your boss is too, the technology might be hindered by any australian accent you have

not sure about software costs, but u would only need a mic in terms of hardware

tbh, you'd be better off learning to touch type

[Solus]

not sure about software costs, but u would only need a mic in terms of hardware

true, assuming your sound card in said computer was compatible. but i dont think thats much of an issue. Mass built Compaq machines from a few years back, ones that predate dual core etc but still lie within Pentium 4 range, can do it. i too am australian, and as long as your not talking with the stereotypical heavy accent you shouldnt have too much problem. my brother has one of these mass built machines, and he had the software working.

and on that note of software, machines used in an office are generally mass produced machines, ie built by Dell, HP, Compaq and the like. and as part of that, the software for such voice dictation should be on the driver disk supplied with these machines. simply put, talk to your I.T. manager/administrator, or B&IS coordinator, whichever it is that applies to you. they should have said software under lock and key for maintainence purposes.

i hear its easy to setup but i think the learning curve of the software will take too long to warrant any changeover. productivity wont exactly be all that good either.