Have you ever wanted to shout at your computer? Well, you might want to think again, and instead tell your computer what to do. Interesting idea? Well, you might be surprised to learn that I’m writing this post by dictating it into Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I installed it a few minutes ago, went through some training and proceeded to see if I could produce a blog post without too much trouble.
I’m actually quite impressed by how well it understands my voice and correcting mistakes is a doddle once you get used to it. I was speaking to a friend yesterday about how useful it would be if one could simply record his voice and get it turned into a blog post and well here I am today doing just that! I’ve heard that Dragon NaturallySpeaking can understand up to 150 words a minute, can you imagine how productive. I would be if I could blog at that speed?
Here’s what the experience looks like:
Dragon has been around for some time now, I remember someone talking to me about it many moons ago, but the quality of speech recognition seems to have improved by leaps and bounds. There’s a great New York Times Review talking about it too. Besides using it to transcribe speech, the review also shows Dragon NaturallySpeaking being used to issue commands to a computer.
If you want to get an idea just how quick Dragon NaturallySpeaking can process your dictation, just have a look at the video alongside this paragraph to watch a demo of someone really running the software through its paces. This latest version of Dragon (Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10) brings with it a 20% improvement in accuracy and I must say I was pretty darn impressed with how accurate it was (especially considering my Maltese accent)
And if you don’t believe that Dragon can be a quicker way to get your content into your blog, go ahead and take the Dragon NaturallySpeaking typing test!
Wow, that actually seems to work pretty well. You appear to have to pause to let it get caught up with you but otherwise this is a pretty cool demo.
that’s something i definitely want to try.
Okay, so everyone’s ranting and raving about Dragon. I get it. So what are its weak points that nobody mentions?
Now that I’m definitely adding a new blog, I really need this program. My hands hurt from typing so much. I’d love to get my hands on this!
“Maltese accent” – I’ve only just realised I’ve never heard your voice 🙂
“productive. I would be ” – think you need to retrain it/correct the text there, extra full stop 🙂
@ChrisM: One incorrect punctuation mark in 2 paragraphs. That’s a pretty good accuracy rating I think. To tell you the truth I turned on “automatic punctuation” which probably did that. It inserts commas and fullstops depending on how long you pause. I only gave it 10 mins of training, but I suppose that also means that I only had 10 mins of learning how to use it. It shouldn’t be an issue once I get used to how long a pause it needs.
I was pretty impressed with the “select something and make it bold” thingy at the beginning of the demo. Don’t you think that was cool?
Indeed, definitely miles better than the last time I tried the package out, think it was v7 or so.
I too would be interested in the answer to Ferox’s question…
I bought Dragon with the idea that I would transcribe blog posts on my 70 minute ride home but I just haven’t been able to get into it.
I love this software. I used it a lot.
Interesting.. but I’m still not convinced on how reliable it is. Is it really worth the $200? Are there any competing products.
“Okay, so everyone’s ranting and raving about Dragon. I get it. So what are its weak points that nobody mentions?”
I’m wanting to know the same thing.
This is a great tool. Thanks for sharing it with your readers.