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In fact, quite a few of us have been doing this for some time. What you are reading was dictated using NaturallySpeaking, the speech recognition software the majority use who must (or prefer to) do some or all functions on the computer by voice. Well, "Put in the CD!", doesn't quite work but I can dictate very quickly and I can control everything within Mozilla (and Windows) by voice commands.

I applaud the folks at Opera for their efforts. While a truly user-friendly speaker-independent voice interface for all computers is still a while off, it is the future and in the meantime providing the basic functionality of being able to control things like your Web browser by voice commands benefits many. Some will just find it fun to play with, of course, but others will find it truly useful and for some, like me, it is indispensable; I'm a quadriplegic and have used voice/speech recognition since the 486 days.

Opera and Mozilla are excellent choices and both provide different approaches to accessibility, making one the better choice for some than the other (having choice is great!) but here's a bit of irony -- Internet Explorer is the one directly supported by NaturallySpeaking but while I would prefer Mozilla in any case, Mozilla actually works better for me using speech recognition.

Now, if only we could get speech recognition working well natively in Linux...

[Dictated using speech recognition technology. There may be air oars]

Our product was aptly named TFS Translator. The engine was called Barcelona, made by Globalink, until recently Lernout & Hauspie and currently ScanSoft. (Some people have too much money) Link to the current product based on that engine. They also have some tips on what to keep in mind if you are preparing a text for automatic translation. Ah, they finally added Japanese! Konnichi-wa, Anjin-San! :-)

...and a balrog in a pear tree!

Our product was aptly named TFS Translator. The engine was called Barcelona, made by Globalink, until recently Lernout & Hauspie and currently ScanSoft. (Some people have too much money) Link to the current product based on that engine. They also have some tips on what to keep in mind if you are preparing a text for automatic translation. Ah, they finally added Japanese! Konnichi-wa, Anjin-San! :-)

...and a balrog in a pear tree!

Speech recognition has been part of Windows CE for a long while. Here is a press release from Lernout & Hauspie for the technology that was licensed to Microsoft in 1998. [I recall using a very poor speech recognition software on Windows CE even earlier.]

To stay on topic: I still use Netscape 4.76 and the reason is that I like the profiles that are stored *not* as a part of the user configuration but in a separated directory ([ProgramFilesDir]\Netscape\Users). This is very usefull if you have multiple computers and want to be able to use the same profiles all over the network: just share the directory and load your profiles on the central computer (the router in my config).
I know what you think: hey, but just use a domain server where you store remote user profiles (W2K and NT4 workstations) and voilà, same profile everywhere due to the duplication at login. True, this works...at work....not at home where I do *not* have a dedicated domain server in sitting the cave and that we lay the network cables only when needed. Local browsing can still be done, you just need to add a "Local" netscape profile on the harddisk of each machine, and of you go.

With Mozilla and Internet Explorer, I cannot use this setup because user preferences are stored as a part of the Windows User profile. Implementing a domain server is not an issue: I do not have an machine lying around to take over this task (can this be done using Linux by the way? Using Samba? Presumably!).
I'm sure my family will get pissed off if when I tell them: oh, bookmarks will now be local to the machine: you'll have to update your bookmarks on every machine :-(

Agenda's Palm Clone

Sharp

PalmPalm's Phone PDA

VTech's Updated Version

Samsung's Yopy

Lernout & Hauspie's version with Speech Recognition
maybe more?

At this rate, I might as well develop one.

Also since the invention was described as replacing something "dirty, expensive, sometimes dangerous and often frustrating" it mean that it would replace a human assistant.

Also this kind of thing wouldn't be that far out since Honda recently demo'd their walking robot and Kamen demo'd his iBot. Also text-to-speech (http://www.lucent.com/speech/) and speech-to-text (http://www.lhsl.com/) software already exists. The hard part would be gluing the stuff together so that the robot would be easy to use and useful.

It would be revolutionary, fun, possibly cause legal concerns (what?!? have robots walking around?) and cities might have to be designed around them to give them a separate lane to travel from point A to point B.

I work for Lernout and Hauspie. We make voice recognition products specific to healthcare - and have prototype handheld voice recognition devices running Linux on the compaq i-paq. In my own estimation, the cross over is not far away. I'm betting we will release a VR handheld for use in healthcare.

See this link for healthcare product info at L&H.

See this link for L&H's press announcement about L&H's Linux PDA.


See these slashdot stories about L&H's Linux PDA:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/31/143222 6&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/02/05/092820 0&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/10/185920 8&mode=thread.

I work for Lernout and Hauspie. We make voice recognition products specific to healthcare - and have prototype handheld voice recognition devices running Linux on the compaq i-paq. In my own estimation, the cross over is not far away. I'm betting we will release a VR handheld for use in healthcare.

See this link for healthcare product info at L&H.

See this link for L&H's press announcement about L&H's Linux PDA.


See these slashdot stories about L&H's Linux PDA:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/03/31/143222 6&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/02/05/092820 0&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/10/185920 8&mode=thread.

According to my experiments Lernout and Hauspie Speech Products does a much better job than Babelfish.

One day us, Little Skunks, will RULE!!!

You can even get translator software for your Palm now. Who needs Babelfish?!

I'm a WinDoze (no flames please) engineer and I work on reading software for the blind and learning disabled (the Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 products offered by Lernout & Hauspie). One of the nice parts of writing such software for Windows is that the off-screen model is fully documented and available for your use. A couple years ago Microsoft added a set of API's called Active Accessibility which at first were so-so, but which have improved over the last two revisions. Windows may not be the greatest OS, but it does offer the programmer some very nice accessibility features. I know many blind people that have grown to really like Windows because of the products available to them. In my experience, the blind computer users I've run into tend to be very technical and understand the issues surrounding their use of a computer. Most choose Windows because of the effort that has gone into making it accessible.

Please note I'm not trying to pump up Windows. I use both Linux and Windows at home and both are useful for different purposes. I did send this article on to a few blind people I know. Hopefully one or more will try this distro out and let me know how well it works.

I'm a WinDoze (no flames please) engineer and I work on reading software for the blind and learning disabled (the Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000 products offered by Lernout & Hauspie). One of the nice parts of writing such software for Windows is that the off-screen model is fully documented and available for your use. A couple years ago Microsoft added a set of API's called Active Accessibility which at first were so-so, but which have improved over the last two revisions. Windows may not be the greatest OS, but it does offer the programmer some very nice accessibility features. I know many blind people that have grown to really like Windows because of the products available to them. In my experience, the blind computer users I've run into tend to be very technical and understand the issues surrounding their use of a computer. Most choose Windows because of the effort that has gone into making it accessible.

Please note I'm not trying to pump up Windows. I use both Linux and Windows at home and both are useful for different purposes. I did send this article on to a few blind people I know. Hopefully one or more will try this distro out and let me know how well it works.

Belgium is fast becoming the Mecca for speech and language technology with players like Lernout & Hauspie and projects like Flanders Language Valley.

All of europe really needs these kinds of technologies, but Belgium is one of the more multilingual countries within Europe.