Dictation in process…
August 23rd, 2008 Posted in Reviews, TechnologyWell, I’ve spent a couple days trying to get used to using MacSpeech Dictate and I have to say things are going swimmingly. For the most part, the accuracy rate is pretty high. I haven’t really gone through training it by having it scan my writing. I’m sure this would increase the accuracy rate.One of the features that I’m hearing about Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the capability to correct misunderstood words and phrases using a learning process. This learning process figures out where it made a mistake, thus making the mistake less likely to happen in the future. Part of it even allows someone to spell out a word. This would fully eliminate the need to touch the keyboard at all.
Right now MacSpeech Dictate is at version 1.0. Rumor on the street is that version 1.1 will start implementing this active learning process. I hope so, the paradigm of speaking and watching the words appear on the screen gets broken when I have to actively moved to the keyboard or mouse.
One of the features that I didn’t pay much attention to at first was the incorporation of AppleScript. In fact, I discovered that the commands that are available for you to control the computer itself are all Applescripts. I went through them and eliminated many that I felt wouldn’t be necessary. This included launching a lot of seldomly used applications but also scripts that I felt were odd (such as “microphone on”; useless if the microphone is off since Dictate would not be able to hear you say it). After a quick bit of tinkering, I was able to get a script set up to switch the sound output from the headset to the internal speakers and vice versa.
This inclusion — that I had initially overlooked — is really important because the AppleScript programming language allows a lot of control over the functionality of the most operations in the Mac operating system and applications on the Mac.
Well, so far I have found MacSpeech Dictate great purchase!
