Monday, April 23, 2007

New voice recognition software alert...

Okay let's try this dance again. This is really annoying.

I'm trying to learn how to use a new voice recognition system. My old one finally ate its shorts and this new one is kind of like dealing with the Rainman. I have to speak very slowly and carefully or I may as well be sending up smoke signals.

Once I get it taught I think it will work well. The state-of-the-art has definitely improved since the version I have been using all of these years. Luckily the headset doesn't appear to pick up helpless laughter or swear words, or least it's more enough not to try to transcribe them.

One large flaw I'm running into is that it doesn't appear to speak directly to my writing organization system. At this time the only application on my system will talk to properly is Word. And even there it's crawling like a six-month-old baby. It's taken me nearly half an hour to speak these three paragraphs and get an accurate result.

I remember when I first started using the other system. I remember how painful it was to teach it how to understand me. That one required over 50,000 words before it would even begin accepting natural language. This one did better than that after only one chapter of Dogbert’s management wisdom.

Making corrections is harder than it needs to be. I'm not quite sure how to make this work. Since I'm on a laptop the hotkey they have mapped the correction menu to does not exist. At some point I'm certain I will figure this out. But there will be grumbling as I do.

In the meantime, if you run into something in my writings that sounds like it came out of the Jabberwock if you could drop me a discrete e-mail I would greatly appreciate it.

6 comments:

august said...

Are you kidding? I haven't even been able to get a computer to recognize my handwriting...

Keifus said...

Interesting. As I sit here cracking my abused wrists, I'm thinking how wonderful voice recognition is, and yet...

And yet, on a lot of levels, most of the ways I use a computer are appealing because they're quiet. Whether it's hiding at work, blogging when the kids are asleep, or maybe some music is going or something.

On top of that, I type a lot more cogently than I speak. As my carpals do their rice crispies thing, I wonder if a nice benefit of voice recognition would be to improve my speaking...

K

MsZilla said...

I've used mine for years to multi-task. If I'm writing with my mouth I can type code/draw/knit/whatever with my hands. I can also write notes for my reviews as I play the game.

It's one of my main strategeies for coping with the amount of stuff I have to get done. This last month or so since it's been down have been very very difficult.

My old one was so well trained it could take dictation almost at a whisper. This new one is more like talking to one of those old friends of your grandmother who is a little hard of hearing.

It's doing better, though. Since Lovecraft turns the best tongue-twisters I know of I hit it with four chapters of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" that night. I've either trained it better or I've consigned it to the depths of gibbering insanity. I don't know which. ;)

Dawn Coyote said...

I've been wanting to try voice recognition software for a while, but it sounds like a pain in the butt. I like the idea of training it with Lovecraft, though. How would Lovecraft feel, d'ya think, about the fact that his work's become kitschy, cute, and endearing?

twiffer said...

lovecraft...cute? um, i can accept endearing, since i'm fond of it. kitchy, not so much.

but, cute? you think that soul-shattering, blasphemeous, eldritch horrors writhing in forgotten, cyclopean cities sunken to the bottom of sea are cute?

what madness assails ye, woman?

Anonymous said...

"if you could drop me a discrete e-mail I would greatly appreciate it."

How about a discreet e-mail or an indiscreet comment?