 |
This article or section has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or discuss these issues on the talk page.
|
 |
|
 A sample dictation in DragonPad, the included text editor. |
|
| Developer(s) | Nuance Communications |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 10.1 / March 2009 |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Voice Recognition |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | http://www.nuance.com |
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a speech recognition software package developed by Dragon Systems, and sold by Nuance Communications for Windows personal computers (PCs). It was among the first programs to make speech recognition practical on a PC.[1]
NaturallySpeaking uses a minimal visual interface. Dictated words appear in a floating tooltip as they are spoken, and when the speaker pauses, the program transcribes the words into the active window at the location of the cursor. Like other speech recognition software, NaturallySpeaking has three primary areas of functionality. Dictation, whereby spoken language is transcribed to written text; commands that control, whereby spoken language is recognized as a command to click widgets (controls); and finally text-to-speech whereby written text is converted to synthesized audio stream. Early versions of the software had to be trained for approximately 10 minutes to recognize the user's voice, though in version 9 that requirement was dropped.
Voice profiles can be accessed through different computers in a networked environment, however the audio hardware and configuration must be identical on both the original and secondary machine.
Nuance claims that using NaturallySpeaking, writing a 900 word essay would take 6 minutes, while typing 40 words per minute and writing a 900 word essay would take 22 minutes.[citation needed]
Nuance has released Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.1, which support Windows Vista 64-bit, in the end of March 2009. [2]
Contents |
History
 |
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2008) |
NaturallySpeaking has passed through four companies and evolved considerably since its first beginnings in the early 1980s as a research prototype called DRAGON. The married couple Dr. James Baker and Dr. Janet Baker founded Dragon Systems in 1982, deciding to commercialize DRAGON when their funding was cut by DARPA. Their first product DragonDictate was sold for a number of years. Dr. James Baker departed from the conventional AI, and was a pioneer in Hidden Markov models, a way of using statistics for recognition of speech. Dr. Janet Baker developed the expert system named Hearsay.
In March of 1990, Dragon Systems began selling DragonDictate (for DOS) at a cost of $9000 for a single-user license. As hardware became less expensive over the next several years the price decreased, and by 1997 the price of DragonDictate for Windows was about $2000. The hardware during this period was not yet powerful enough to address the difficult problem of word segmentation, and DragonDictate was unable to determine the boundaries of words in the continuous signal that constitute human voice. Users had to pronounce one word at a time, each clearly separated by a small pause before the next. DragonDictate was based on a trigram model, and is known as a discrete speech recognition engine.
In 1997 advances in hardware technology allowed NaturallySpeaking version 1.0 to launch as the first available continuous dictation system. During this time the speech recognition industry promoted enthusiastically the notion that speech input was "the" natural modality that would eventually supersede more "primitive" methods such as keyboards. Trying to reach a mass market, vendors dropped prices to levels that were unsustainable.
Lernout & Hauspie bought Dragon Systems in June of 2000 for stock then valued at about $600 million.[3] The dictation system bubble burst in 2001, and Lernout & Hauspie went bankrupt. ScanSoft Inc. bought the rights to Dragon products. In 2005, ScanSoft merged with Nuance Communications, and changed the name of the combined entity to Nuance.
The software today is advertised as 99% accurate.[4]
Issues
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) version 10.0 does not work for any processors that do not support the sse2 instruction set. That excludes all AMD Socket 462 processors, many of which are rated well above the supposed minimum requirements.[citation needed]
- DNS 9.0 up to DNS 9.5 can be installed on Windows XP 64 and Windows Vista 64. There is a fix to force an install on Windows Vista – see this external link or TechSideStories Link. But in the majority of cases the program will not work as expected.
- The process of contacting Nuance Technical support through their website requires a $US10 fee charged to a credit card before any useful dialogue concerning a possibly already well known bug in their software for which a fix has not yet been provided. The support is free in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.[citation needed]
- Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) version 10 during initial installation on a Windows XP machine places its shared library data files into the C:Documents and Settings\<userprofilenname>\Local Settings\Temp\folder_with_a_random_name location, instead of using a dedicated location outside of a "temporary files folder" where the shared libraries would be safe from third party disk cleaning utilities that purge old and normally useless data. Nuance have not provided an updated installer to correct this problem.[citation needed]
- A user who incautiously attempts to edit by voice while composing may confuse the system into considering the first phrase and the replacement phrase as the same, lowering accuracy.[citation needed]
Versions
| Version | Release date | Editions |
|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | June 1997 | Personal |
| 2.0 | November 1997 | Standard, Preferred, Deluxe |
| 3.0 | October 1998 | Point & Speak, Standard, Preferred, Professional (with optional Legal and Medical add-on products) |
| 3.01 | Teens | |
| 4.0 | August 4, 1999 | Essentials,Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, Mobile |
| 5.0 | August 2000 | Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |
| 6.0 | November 15, 2001 | Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |
| 7.0 | March 2003 | Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |
| 8.0 | November 2004 | Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |
| 9.0 | July 2006 | Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server |
| 9.1 | ?? | Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server |
| 9.5 | January 2007 | Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server |
| 10.0 | August 7, 2008 | Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |
See also
References
- ^ Sindya N. Bhanoo. July 16, 2007. Language quest moves to Hopkins: Speech-to-text technology expert joins defense work. Baltimore Sun. Retrieved on July 20, 2007.
- ^ http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/support/vista_64bit.asp
- ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E7DB1F38F934A35756C0A9679C8B63&pagewanted=all
- ^ "Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9". Nuance Communications. http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/legal/. Retrieved on 2008-04-25.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
