What to think about SR app's?

Depends on who you ask.

To me, it is just an alternative way to create text.

Some advantages, some disadvantages over the regular
keyboard way of creating text.

There are two modern speech app's that Vista users can
run on their computers, WSR and DNS.

Vista users who happen to use Macs can run three
speech app's on their Mac, WSR, DNS, MSD.

WSR = Windows Speech Recognition
DNS = Dragon NaturallySpeaking
MSD = MacSpeech Dictate

WSR is free, provided you use the built in microphone
that comes with your PC. I think a lot of WSR users
wind up buying a microphone, which can run the cost
up to $50 or $300, depending on the microphone.

DNS costs up to $1,600 which does not include all the
auxillary hardware and software, which can easily run up
the total cost to over $7,000 if you happen to be a doctor.

MSD costs $200, microphone included.


Everyone has their own opinion about the value,
or lack thereof, of speech recognition app's.

Some people speak from experience, others speak from
a broad base of ignorance, still others are trying to
sell you something, like microphones for example.

In my case, I do not really care whether you use
WSR, DNS, or MSD - - - my only concern is for the
medical community, where I do volunteer work.

The medical community, like it or not, seems to be
"locked into" using DNS, for various reasons.

I wish that were not the case, but Nuance (DNS) has
a death grip on the entire medical market, even more so
now, being Nuance just recently gobbled up MacSpeech.

I use all three speech app's myself, yes even the bottom
of the barrel free WSR app.



I am one of the few people here who can turn my TV up loud
on an "infomercial" and then dictate into WSR without
having the loud TV interfere with the accuracy of the text.

Cuss and discuss...

Mark-

"Mark Conrad" <aeiou@newsgroup> wrote in message
news:210220100207000997%aeiou@newsgroup




I see you haven't many people answering you. Could that be because you are
a troll? Most probably.

> What to think about SR app's?
>
> Depends on who you ask.
>
> To me, it is just an alternative way to create text.

To me, as you already know, it is a way of life. A necessity, being
disabled and unable to use my hands to type.

> Some advantages, some disadvantages over the regular
> keyboard way of creating text.

True, but for the disabled or someone who cannot use their hands for some
reason, it is not only advantageous but also truly amazing and imperative.


Without it for example, I would not have been able to reply to you on my own
;-).

> There are two modern speech app's that Vista users can
> run on their computers, WSR and DNS.

True. I have both. WSR is already integrated within the operating systems
of Vista and Windows 7. DNS had to be bought and put on my PC.

> WSR = Windows Speech Recognition
> DNS = Dragon NaturallySpeaking

> WSR is free, provided you use the built in microphone
> that comes with your PC. I think a lot of WSR users
> wind up buying a microphone, which can run the cost
> up to $50 or $300, depending on the microphone.

Very true ;-). I started using the built in microphone in my laptop for
WSR, as you very well know young Mark. Unfortunately, using this can be
very frustrating as the built in microphone is not noise cancelling and the
slightest noise from anywhere will allow text to come up on screen
willy-nilly. Also, without a decent microphone, this will impair accuracy
with dictation.

> DNS costs up to $1,600 which does not include all the
> auxillary hardware and software, which can easily run up
> the total cost to over $7,000 if you happen to be a doctor.

Another advantage when using speech recognition all the time as I have to
being disabled; speech recognition never makes a spelling mistake. So this
is also a useful tool for somebody who is semi-illiterate and does not spell
too well. That is, why for the life of me do you not use it more regularly
instead of typing Mark? Because then you would have spelt auxiliary right
above like I have here.


Really? $7000 seems a bit steep. What do you mean by all auxiliary
equipment? Are you including the PC within that price?

> Everyone has their own opinion about the value,
> or lack thereof, of speech recognition app's.
>
> Some people speak from experience, others speak from
> a broad base of ignorance, still others are trying to
> sell you something, like microphones for example.

Well if the second one above is aimed at me young Mark, (tee-hee) I can only
reply by saying; seeing as I do not have a choice and I have to use speech
recognition all the time, I can certainly say without sounding conceited, I
speak from experience now.

>In my case, I do not really care whether you use
> WSR, DNS, or MSD - - -

Are you really that conceited and do you really think the people in this
news group care about you not caring what speech recognition app they use if
indeed they use one at all?

>my only concern is for the
> medical community, where I do volunteer work.

Y-e-h, r - i - g - h - t

> The medical community, like it or not, seems to be
> "locked into" using DNS, for various reasons.
>
> I wish that were not the case, but Nuance (DNS) has
> a death grip on the entire medical market, even more so
> now, being Nuance just recently gobbled up MacSpeech.

So what?


Dragon has slowly been developing over the last 18 years. WSR has only been
developing just over 2 and is not aimed at the medical market in the first
place. So stop panicking. You do not have to promote your Dragon in here
because I am sure your precious job will still be safe. Do not worry and
let WSR frighten you.

> yes even the bottom
> of the barrel free WSR app.

He would say that wouldn't he being a sales agent of Dragon ;-).

Anybody buying a new computer these days with Windows on it will
automatically have WSR included within it.

> I am one of the few people here who can turn my TV up loud
> on an "infomercial" and then dictate into WSR without
> having the loud TV interfere with the accuracy of the text.

I will agree that this is one of the advantages of Dragon. When the
microphone is in the sleeping position, I have noticed the television being
on does not affect it to a certain extent. WSR's sound meter is far more
sensitive and more likely to turn itself on with the television on in the
background. It demands much quieter surroundings.


However, I easily overcome this problem now by using a double command macro.
One of the macros is put in Dragon's "Add new command" feature and is called
"Enable Windows Speech." The other is put in WSR's "speech recognition
macros" folder. It is made from within the WSR toolkit and is called
"Enable Dragon."


Now if I am using WSR and I want to have the television on as well say, I
simply say "Enable Dragon." This will turn off WSR's sound meter completely
and wake up Dragon's microphone from its 'off' position. If I want to go
back to using WSR, I simply say "Enable Windows Speech" and WSR's sound
meter will magically open ready to use while at the same time changing
Dragon's microphone from green to red and completely off. A brilliant
double macro would you not say that interacts between both speech apps.


Having been said all that, I have found if I have the television up TOO
loud, this will affect EVEN Dragon's text and accuracy. But why would you
need the television up TOO loud in the first place? If you were hard of
hearing I suppose, but I cannot think why else.


At the end of the day, both Windows speech recognition and Dragon
NaturallySpeaking have their advantages and disadvantages. That is why I
use both and get the best of both worlds ;-).

andy t

In article <edBIJ$LtKHA.3536@newsgroup>, andy t
<andyt@newsgroup> wrote:

> I see you haven't many people answering you.
> Could that be because you are a troll?
> Most probably.

First off, let me congratulate you that you _mostly_
accept the spirit of this thread and therefore keep
your comments as constructive and useful to others
here as it is possible for you to do, considering your
innate destructive nature.

I was not really expecting many to answer this thread,
given the present unpopularity or SR among personal
computer users.

> > WSR is free, provided you use the built in microphone
> > that comes with your PC. I think a lot of WSR users
> > wind up buying a microphone, which can run the cost
> > up to $50 or $300, depending on the microphone.

>
> Very true ;-). I started using the built in microphone
> in my laptop for WSR, as you very well know young Mark.
> Unfortunately, using this can be very frustrating as the
> built in microphone is not noise cancelling and the slightest
> noise from anywhere will allow text to come up on screen
> willy-nilly. Also, without a decent microphone, this will
> impair accuracy with dictation.

There you go, lurkers, right from the horse's mouth, from a
user "Andy" who was introduced to Vista speech recognition
"for free", then found out he needed to spend money to improve
the performance of SR. (SR short for Speech Recognition)

> Another advantage when using speech recognition
> all the time as I have to being disabled; speech
> recognition never makes a spelling mistake.

Out-of-the-box, yes, but of course we can get it to
make spelling mistakes if we want it to, as in both
creating and _recognizing_ slang words.

> So this is also a useful tool for somebody who is
> semi-illiterate and does not spell too well.

Yes indeed, I was not born with a silver spoon in
my mouth, had to support my family while others
my age were learning how to spell correctly.

> That is, why for the life of me do you not use it more
> regularly instead of typing Mark? Because then you
> would have spelt auxiliary right above like I have here.

Because you are not worth the effort for me to break out
my spell checker. I just do not share your belief that
correct spelling is all that important.

I manage to get across my meaning quite well, thank you,
without using 100% perfect spelling, and after all,
that is the purpose of language, to get across intended
meaning.

Oh certainly, whenever I was grinding out a scientific
paper for one of the three scientific organizations I
belonged to, the IEEE, ACM, IAAA, _THEN_ I broke out
the spell checker.

> > DNS costs up to $1,600 which does not include all the
> > auxillary hardware and software, which can easily run up
> > the total cost to over $7,000 if you happen to be a doctor.

>
> Really? $7000 seems a bit steep. What do you mean by all
> auxiliary equipment? Are you including the PC
> within that price?

No, the PC would be an additional $3,000 - bringing the
grand total up to $10,000

$5,000 just for software to handle voice data entry into
EMR and EHR forms, those forms are _required_ by law
to be filled out. This voice controlled software is sold by
outfits like "MacPractice MD".

As for auxiliary hardware, the doctor finds it advisable
to buy a high quality 30" additional monitor to spot
important details on CAT scans that would be missed by
a lower quality monitor. These 30" high resolution Apple
monitors do not come cheap, I have one that costs over
$3,000 , not to even mention the higher cost video card
that I needed to buy to properly drive that monitor.

> > Some people speak from experience, others speak from
> > a broad base of ignorance, still others are trying to
> > sell you something, like microphones for example.

>
> Well if the second one above is aimed at me young Mark,
> (tee-hee) I can only reply by saying; seeing as I do not
> have a choice and I have to use speech recognition all the
> time, I can certainly say without sounding conceited, I
> speak from experience now.

No you do not "speak from experience now", because you
have not yet grasped the importance of a correctly
functioning document scanning feature.

People just can't afford the waste of time of the WSR
"workaround" for the broken document scanning
feature of WSR.

Speech Recognition is a marginal endeavor, any half-vast
"workaround" that consumes additional time means that
a person might as well just type the data in, instead of
using SR.

> Dragon has slowly been developing over the last 18 years.
> WSR has only been developing just over 2 and is not aimed
> at the medical market in the first place. So stop panicking.

Whose panicking? I am sure everyone realizes that WSR is
only a toy, suited for introducing a newbie to SR.

Certainly the medical industry realizes WSR is a toy, of the
600 major hospitals in the US that use SR, not one of them
uses WSR, they ALL use Dragon - - - and your argument
that WSR "is not aimed at the medical market" does not
hold water either, because standard "hobby" versions of
Dragon, such as the $200 "Preferred" version, have
successfully been used by many hospitals here as a
cost-saving measure.

Of course I and everyone else here knows you are a
sales agent for $Microsoft$, and get a lot of big bucks
from them to promote the bottom of the barrel WSR,
whose bugs they refuse to fix, such as the broken
document scanning feature.

I can't help wondering how many naive WSR users are
sucked in by believing that check-marking the box:

"Allow computer to review your documents"

....would be any good at all to increasing accuracy,
because that feature is broken.

Seems it would be the basis for a class-action
lawsuit against $MS, for false advertising.

Mark-