When I had thumb surgery in 2008, I invested in voice recognition software to try to get work done. I spent most of the time fighting and correcting the Dragon Naturally Speaking. The one good thing that came out of the maddening experience was this funny speech-to-text software post.
Despite having little hope in software to help me while I recover from arm surgery, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to try the software that came with Windows 7. At least, I wasn’t throwing money away like I did with Dragon Naturally Speaking. Folks said that speech recognition apps had improved in the last few years.
Well, not in my case.
I completed the training tutorial and had a few shouting matches. My husband must’ve thought I went bonkers when he heard me yelling at the laptop.
I spoke slowly and put on my best speech forward. The crossed out text is what the software thinks I said. What I actually said appears in [brackets]. Here are the sound files of my dictating this letter: [original .wma] [converted .mp3]. Do I really sound like that?
Dear Voice Recognition Software, [During world recognition that when]
Next three [Let's see] how you do. Are you any better than one can not to write [Dragon Naturally] Speaking brown to the than eight [from 2008]? What are you dress adding [Or are you just as] temperamental?
Oon Caplan on my mother [I'm having ulnar nerve] (Aside: would you believe my maiden name is Kaplan?) decompression star Julie on [surgery] on my right arm on Tuesday, in king, to do a one to [December 18, 2012]. I don’t know how number that were the people were [long it'll be before] I can type halfway do badly the end of period. [decently with two hands].
Nonetheless, I’m away from [grateful] that I have horrendous and a burned rest am a newcomer accident [two hands and a voice even though it's not the clearest one]. Thank you for less than 10 listening.
This [Best],
Navarro [Meryl]
I spent another 10 minutes trying to spell my name. “R” gave me the biggest fit. I knew it was my weakest letter, so I tried telling it “R and in rabbit. R as in read” It interpreted that as a, i, and y. Seriously — Navarro? Meryl? Na-va-ro? Meh-ril? Do they sound anything alike?
“Two” from “two hands” changed the paragraph heading to header 2: big, bold, light blue. It was a 10-minute battle of wills trying to fix the paragraph formatting and telling the app I wanted to write “two.”
I’ll be getting an upgraded smartphone soon with voice recognition capabilities. Wanna bet that Siri and I won’t get along?
What’s your experience with voice recognition software?
Search and archives
Get Updates
-
Categories
Archives
- June 2013
- May 2013
- February 2013
- December 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
-
Other Stops
-
Recommended
Sponsors
Blogroll
All Content © Copyright 1995 - 2013 Meryl.net. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Privacy Policy