You were probably introduced to speech recognition when Microsoft included a native voice-recognition system inside Office XP (and Windows XP SP1). The very idea of dictating Word documents and Outlook emails was exciting enough but you soon left, largely unimpressed, because there were just too many mistakes and you were spending more time in correcting the transcribed text instead of actual dictation.
Speaking into the microphone was therefore never considered a more productive activity than typing with the traditional keyboard. Things are, however, very different now [watch the video demo above]
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 from Nuance may change your perception of speech recognition software forever - the software is amazingly accurate and works like a charm - all you need is a Windows XP/Vista computer with enough RAM, fast processorand few gigs of free hard disk space.And yes, you also require a good Microphone but dont need to buy one separately as the speech software ships with a comfortable noise-cancelling headset microphone already.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 installation and online activation was a snap. Once the software was installed, you can skip the training part and start dictation immediately (though we recommend reciting some training text for much accurate results).
During installation, the software scans and reads your Outlook email messages (in the Sent Items folder) and the My Documents folder to learn more about your writing style, vocabulary and even the name of your friends and contacts from emails. In fact, DNS 9 recognized and spelled i-P-h-o-n-e correctly (with I in small case) it probably learned that term from our Outlook emails [see screenshot]
You will sometime notice that your dictation is not appearing fast enough on the screen - that's because Dragon listens to your full sentence, analyzes the context and then transcribes. So you may not see errors like "hear" instead of "here" or "I Scream" instead of "ice scream".
Nuance claims that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 is over 99% accurate and that claim is probably true provided you spend time with the software - when the typed text is different from what you just said, teach the correct word to the software and it won't repeat the error again. In our case, it was constantly recognizing the words "blog" as "block" and "blogging" as "blocking" - once we trained DNS, it spelled even "blogosphere" correctly.
There are easy-to-remember voice commands for almost every computer task or you can create your own custom commands (for instance, a command like "my email" that types your actual email address).
If you don't remember the voice commands, just say "what can I say" or "give me help" and you'll see a list of available commands for that window. It is also possible to control the mouse pointer with your voice though we'll use that feature only when our mouse battery has drained and we don't have a spare one.
Dragon has another useful feature that may well appeal to Podcasters and Video Bloggers - the software can automatically scan an audio file (your podcasts) and create a a text transcript (or shownotes). Google would love your podcasts and vidcasts if you add text transcripts of your shows and Dragon NaturallySpeaking does that for you without any extra effort.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 may be a blessing for bloggers who generally writing long blog entries and need to give their fingers and eyes some rest. Plug-in the microphone, lean back on the chair and start speaking your blog.
Dragon cannot replace the traditional keyboard but it will certainly enhance your writing life and reduce the risks of repetitive stress injuries just have the patience to correct the initial spelling mistakesand the software will keep getting better every time you use it. Wish they provided a more comprehensive printed manual of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 - a large part of the information is available only in the online help file.
We reviewed the Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Professional ($899, with Indian English support) though most of the review commentary will apply to the Standard ($99) and Preferred ($199) editions as well. There's no Mac version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9. Also, you won't find a link to download Dragon Naturally Speak 9 trial version on the Nuance website as the software is only available as a full product.
About Licensing: Though you can install DNS 9 on two computers, the license is per user - that means you and your mom cannot work on the same Dragon NaturallySpeaking License even when the software is installed on the same home computer.
Hands free computing has arrived, finally. Nuance competitors include IBM ViaVoice, Philips Speedmagic and now Windows Vista that has built-in speech recognition technology (though this Vista Speech Demo makes it is fairly tough to conclude that Microsoft will beatNuance in the speech recognition game).
Homepage | Compare Editions | Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 Video Demo
The NFR Demo copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Professional Version 9.10 SP1 for the above review was provided by Erica Hill from Nuance Communications Inc.
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/01/dragon-naturallyspeaking-9-speech.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
But was this blog post done using Dragon Dictate?
=)
What's the difference between the versions?
Written by
Bangalore Bytes on 22/1/07 6:27 PM
You may want to checkout the comparison matrix for that. Just a quick summary here:
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Professional lets you save the audio alongwith the transcription. There's also support for Voice Macros and you dictate with cordless microphones (like the ones by Samson, Sennheiser or Shure)
Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred has the smart formatting feature that automatically inserts punctuation marks in your sentences as you speak.
In Summary, the Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Standard edition should serve the needs of most home and office users. It supports Microsoft Office, Wordpad, IE, Firefox and other software.
Written by
Amit Agarwal on 22/1/07 7:00 PM
great review amit. loved the video demo. the licensing is a disappointment but we are still in the early days of voice automation so eventually DNS should get absorbed into the general fabric and become as natural as hyperlinks :-)
Written by
Anonymous on 22/1/07 8:53 PM
This post, and relatively many other posts from your blog these days, appear more and more like advertisements for the product mentioned. Given that you are popular, that is not surprising, but aren't you supposed to declare honestly that content was paid for? -Ashish
Written by
Ashish Gupta on 23/1/07 10:56 PM
Did they send you a copy to 'test' as well? I've been meaning to install mine, but I'm going to wait until next week once I've done my Vista upgrade...assuming all goes well!
Written by
Everton Blair on 23/1/07 11:03 PM
@sunfever - yes, the licensing may be a problem if you are using dictation at home and other family members also want to try the software.
@Ashish Gupta - I am pretty shocked and disappointed to read your comment.
@Everton Blair - They might be shipping another update like Dragon 9.2 or something to make the software fully compatible with Vista. Better wait for that service pack.
Written by
Amit Agarwal on 23/1/07 11:10 PM
I am sorry for your disappointment. I just told what I felt like. May be it isn't advertisement.
Written by
Ashish Gupta on 24/1/07 5:32 AM
It is Philips SpeechMagic
Written by
Anonymous on 24/1/07 9:29 PM
Please send me Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 torrent or retail software. Searched on piratebay and emule but could not find.
Written by
Download Dragon Speaking 9 on 27/1/07 5:03 PM
The Windows XP and Vista speech applications are great. The blogging world has had a field day with the demo gone awry. However, the software does work if you use it. Other videos on YouTube show this to be true.
Combine text-to-speech with voice and speech recognition and animated avatars and you have a really interesting computer interface: audible computing
Written by
Jeff on 30/1/07 3:28 AM
Robert Hinkle - I just bought Dragon Speaking 9 a few months ago and love it,but now I have a new computer with Windows Vista Home Premium,
and the Dragon 9 SP1 will not run on Windows Vista. Is there an upgrade for new Windows Vista program.
Amit - There should be a Windows Vista Service Pack for Dragon NS 9.1 very soon.
Written by
Dragon 9 for Vista on 18/2/07 9:20 AM
All I read is that Nuance upgrade for Dragon Naturally Speaking Pro version 9 is going to be ready soon but that was first said in the middle of Feb and now we are approaching end of March-does anybody in the UK know when it will be available to registered users of 9.1?
Nuance just say soon?
Written by
Anonymous on 24/3/07 11:36 PM
Amit is an employee for Nuance, the company that is selling this product. Any review done by Amit, for a nuance sold product needs to taken as sales talk as it is a biased opion.
Written by
Anonymous on 15/4/07 4:57 AM
I'm having real trouble with Dragon and Office 2007. How do you access the tabs and toolbar items??? "Click" doesn't seem to work, nor does saying the tab name? Also, Dragon and Word 2007 don't seem to play nice at all together, and keep locking up my system (Toshiba Satellite Pro with a Duo Core processor and 2GB RAM).
As I'm trying to teach Dragon to students with physical disabilities (limited use of hands and arms) the ability to replace the mouse and keyboard by voice is a must!
Written by
Dave Irvine on 16/7/07 10:59 PM
Hello
I'm having the same problem with getting to grips with Dragon v9 and word 2007. Does anyone have any info on how to navigate the ribbon and edit text by command?
Written by
Emma on 12/9/07 2:49 PM
HI . . can someone explain more about the licensing by user? Does this mean it will only work with one voice? I am trying to decide if I should buy this for my mom who is very hard of hearing, but more than one person will be speaking to her . . . using the same computer . . thank you
Written by
turbo on 29/9/07 9:25 PM
1. can it used only on one computer - could i not put it on my laptop and desktop in office
2. can i buy it in india from a store
3. vista vs xp - will i need two versions for xp and vista
Written by
Shivani on 11/11/07 8:00 AM
Only Dragon 9.5 and above supports Office 2007.
There seems to be a disticnt lack of information regarding the new commands needed for the new office 2007, having spoke to Nuance Tech directly they were extremely unhelpful.
Written by
Anonymous on 23/11/07 5:28 PM
I'm a programmer with a broken hand and am interested in using speech recognition to help me type simple words. eg, include, if then, stuff like that. I'd like to use my keyboard and also speak when it makes sense but not in any particular application. Depending on what I'm programming, I use different editors and terminal emulators. Ideally I'd like to use something that just takes my words and acts as if they came from keyboard like a barcode scanner does, rather than require specific software. Can dragon do this?
Written by
bob4jga on 28/11/07 1:48 PM