Hands-Free Computing

Sounds awsome but one thing i cant wait for is the invention of a device for what tone your using weather it be angry excited or whatever the emotion might be. Emotion sensitive software would be oh so helpfull when someone im's me and says "dude why didnt you tell me!?"

There is really good voice recognition software out there. I am partially disabled and have been using a wonderful product called talkingdesktop.com that runs my computer for me and I wish others could see how much this software can help.

I have been using this little gem for about a year now. It is really a unique product, a VERY light version of speech recognition - oriented towards web browsing. I like that it is small, well thought out, and best of all FREE. The voice recognition seems be quite robust - which itself is no small feat for such a small program. It fills an interesting niche - the idea of linking web browsing with voice recognition. Other products obviously can do this, but it seem that browsing was an afterthought with stuff like Dragon, ViaVoice etc. This product looks like it was designed from the bottom up just for web browsing. In addition, the are a whole host of clever things built in that I would not have thought of, but are quite useful for browsing.

In summary, if you want to dictate a 100 page legal document, then this is not the product for you. But if you want to see the future of web browsing (think "...Where Star Trek meets the Internet...") then you should download a copy and play with it. Once you get the recognition engine trained and get used to using it (for me it took a few days to really get used to it), its really addictive and hard to live without.

I downloaded this software tonight after reading about it and it's way cool. Best thing about it: it really works, and really works well!

tazti is free and limited, but a different app (shareware, unfortunately) called e-speaking is the king. controls my music player, web browsing, printing, copy&paste. It's so mu practical to say 'next track' from your bed when your reading than to go to your computer or use a pilot :)

I liked that this program does voice searching. Still, I'm all about the iTunes. It lets me control iTunes really well. I use it while I'm doing research at the libray - headphone-mic's on and I'm cranking away to the music while I work.

What you do not realize is that Talkingdesktop is different from all the other voice software because it wants to talkback to you without being prompted.

When I do not talk for awhile, the software ASKS if I am still there or where am I. It calls out my name. If I leave the room for abit and then return and sit down, it hears me and makes my computer comes back from hibernation and the character ASKS if its me.

A very different experience than what I am use to.

I like this application, my favorite part is the verbal command to turn on and off the microphone, so I can talk on the phone and get back to my PC. I've used this application on my Mac via Parallels with WinXP, really like the bookmark commands.

Cool Application, and you can't beat FREE!

Thanks guys

JasonP

Paul - more talking computers and voice software articles would be interesting. Most stuff seems to be about hardware and gadgets so some looks at cutting-edge software would be great.
Thanks

Until speech recognition employs lip-reading, speaker recognition, and facial recognition (all things even the human brain does automatically), as well as some more flexible recognition patterns (so we can speak more naturally), and perhaps a widened scope of understanding (using context clues from the entire conversation rather than just the last sentence), speech recognition will not be as natural as it should. If we really want the computer to respond like a human, it needs to know who's talking and if you're talking to IT (i.e. by name or if you're looking at it; camera). It also needs to be able to make educated guesses about what you're saying based on as many relevant context clues as possible. And lastly, when it tries to hear what you're saying, it needs as many sources of information as possible--hence the lip-reading. The McGirk effect should not take precedence over accuracy.

It sounds like I need to get a microphone for my computer!

Other products obviously can do this, but it seem that browsing was an afterthought with stuff like Dragon.
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