Hands Free Computer Operation for Quadriplegics?

Anonymous Coward asks: "Dragon Natural Speaking dropped hands free computer operation support back in version 3. My quadriplegic friend recently upgraded his computer and it came with Windows XP. His old Dragon Natural Speaking will not work on Windows XP. Does anyone know of any complete voice activated computer control for Windows XP or Linux?"

Comments

Microsoft Speech SDK...

[stienman]

IIRC, the Microsoft Speech SDK has just such an example application which is fairly full featured. It should not be difficult to add more features to it if it is inadequate.

Since it's free, you'll lose nothing except some hard drive space and download time (68MB) to try it out. It's been a year since I've last played with it, so YMMV.

It probably doesn't plug into the accessability utility included in XP (press windows + U), but I imagine that there are some out there which do.

Good luck!

-Adam

Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know

[NanoGator]

I'm sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, but I have one of my own. How is your parapelgic friend using the computer? I don't mean from an input kind of view, but rather, how is he using it to entertain himself? Is he doing it to pass time, or is he using it to learn, combination of the two?

I'm asking simply from a curoisity point of view, not from a cynical "why bother?" PoV. Hope I don't come across that way. It seems to me that a person in that kind of situation could create a new life for themselves on the net. Just curious if this person has managed this. If so, I'd really like to know more about it. (note: these questions are open to anybody who has a paralyzed friend getting using a computer...)

Sorry for being off-topic. I just get really curious when it comes to using technology to help people.

Re:Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know

[gmhowell]

On the contrary: desired use of an application (or OS, in this case) is of paramount importance. The tech that would let the person play games is likely very different from that which would aid in word processing.

Re:Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know

[an_mo]

A friend of mine (35 years old) had a vein near the cerebellum blown off a couple of years ago (sorry I forgot the exact diagnosis). He is now semi-paralized. Speech is severely impaired (very hard for us to understand him), so voice recognition is not an option. Communication is slow and difficult (sometimes you have to go throug yes/no questions) but you can easily figure out that his brain is pretty much as sharp as before (he was a CPA). He can't walk, he can sort of move his arms but doesnt' have much control of his fingers, plus his arms sometime tremble a lot, so keyboard is also not an option. The best solution for him is an on-sreen mouse-activated keyboard.

Bottom line, he was trying to use his pc but had difficulties typing with the trembling and all. With other friends we donated him a big monitor and I installed a monitor keyboard so that he can type with using the mouse). He can communicate with friends via the net, expressing arguments and sentences that would take hours for us to understand given the state of his speech. I know he also plays chess. I don't think he is going to create "a new life" on the net, as you put it, for the simple reason that he is not fast enough for IRC and i am not even sure that he is fast enough to post regularly in message forums/email (I think he gets tired after a while). However, it's better than nothing.

Re:Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know

[ummcdou4]

I have a parapeligic friend who was injured about 5 years ago just after getting his geological engineering degree. He was injured in a car accident with a moose so our provinces insurance is paying his living expenses.

He went on to get an MBA from from our provincial university while serving as the Student Union's President for two terms.

He was elected President of our Provincial opposition party and now is a nominated candidate for our federal opposition party and will run for Member of Parliament in the next Canadian Federal Election this year.

Needless to say he uses his computer a lot, to send emails, compose letters, you name it. I play wargames with him and a bunch of friends about once a month, it really puts your problems in perspective when you see what he has overcome.

Some ideas

[Kvorg]

TBI Resources seems a like a good list of resources and information in the field, and it suggests IBM's Via Voice is an alternative. It's web site does not mention Linux and seems to be dictation-oriented, not general control.

Perhaps some of the mailing lists (such as ViaVoice User's ML) would provide more definite answers.

No souch tools are available in mainstream Linux distros, to may knowledge.

Re:Some ideas

[Kvorg]

While I personally prefer GNU/Linux system for a miriad of reasons, I simply took into account the phrase Does anyone know of any complete voice activated computer control for Windows XP or Linux? in the original question.

It does look strange IBM's VivaVoice is listed as supporting Linux, but it never says so on the web page. I thought it was worth some attention since hiding GNU/Linux support in a dark corner is not so general these days as it used to be.

But since most solutions for disabled tend to be disgustingly overpriced or at least pricy, it is rather probable they would target a proprietary system and so a Microsoft platform will probably be better choice for you anyway.

There is also the problem that most X11 toolkits don't have straightforward and compatible automation interfaces and such a solution might be a lot more difficult to do for an X11 envronment. It would be a worth project, however, and perhaps this question should be rerouted directly to the FreeDesktop project, since a good set of standard and interfaces would probably produce good base for a free solution.

Obvious perhaps

[elmegil]

Is there any reason he cannot install his old OS on the new machine? I'm still running Win98 SE on my Windows box, and regardless of M$'s support status, it works just fine...for windows.

L&H VoiceXpress

[DynaSoar]

Says it works with 95, 98, NT and 2000. I have ver. 5, Standard. It came out before XP. I've got 2000, so I can't test for you. I tried the web site listed on the box (www.lhsl.com) but it redirected to Scansoft's page. They have Dragon and ViaVoice listed on the page but sell only Dragon from what I can see. Maybe check for used software places that might have it.

I got Dragon, but refuse to use it because it tells you it requires Internet Explorer to work (it doesn't; it just requires a DLL). If IE isn't your primary browser, it installs IE from its own installation CD, even if you have a later version.

How about...Dragon NaturallySpeaking

[TMLink]

I think you need to look at ScanSoft's product again. Contrary to your statement, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 DOES allow hands-free use of the computer. In fact within the past 4 months I have trained 2 people to use it in a hands-free situation. From all of the built in shortcuts for the most popular software (including IE and Office) to the command "mouse grid", which allows you to move the mouse around the screen by only your voice, Dragon NaturallySpeaking will work great. You can even use a command (which I forget off the top of my head) to press specific keys on your keyboard. If he has the patients to sit down and learn all of the commands (which can be done over time...learn mouse grid, then slowly pick up the shortcuts over time), Dragon can be faster than a keyboard/mouse combo. If he has a clear voice, training will take 15 minutes. And it works with XP.

Might I make the suggestion of getting Preferred over Standard. While it's double the cost, it really does seem to do a better job than Standard. Not sure what the difference is (smaller vocab maybe?), but it's there.

A long time ago...

[WildFire42]

The history of Dragon Naturally Speaking and ViaVoice is pretty interesting. Dragon Naturally Speaking was started by a company called Dragon, several years ago. Originally, they marketed a program called Dragon Dictate, which was designed for command and control, more so than for document dictation. They stumbled on a new technology using phonemes, and were able to create Naturally Speaking, which, like the name, allows someone to speak at normal conversational speeds and the software will still recognize it (Dragon Dictate pretty much made you speak like William Shatner on a bad day).

Fast forward a little...Naturally Speaking got sold to a company called Scansoft when Dragon went under (I forget why). Scansoft, within the last year bought ViaVoice from IBM, which had dropped sales and further development of their Linux version of the software, which is now nowhere to be found.

Ultimately, Scansoft pretty much controls the market in terms of Voice Dictation.

However, there are some interesting things still going on. For instance, Intel has been working on the Audio/Visual Speech Control/Recognition engine, which is part of Intel's OpenCV (face recognition stuff).

Ultimately, try out this link. There's quite a bit of information there.

Not voice but...

[An Audience of One]

Have a look at the Dasher Project. Its not voice input, but they have several input methods which can be used by para- and quadra-plegics (eye tracker, head mouse, breath mouse, toungue mouse, etc) - you pretty much can use any movement you can make. It can be faster and more accurate than most voice recognition systems, and they have it working for controlling the UI as well as textual input now.

Matt

Welcome!

[unixbum]

I for one welcome our new hands-free Quadriplegic Overlords!

Re:I have a question

[cooley]

LOL I don't want to blow shit about your girlfriend or anything, but I LMAO seeing such a sensitive post coming from a username like "smacktits".

Re:Nope

[geoffspear]

Mac OS X's speech recognition is kind of neat, but it's not really able to completely control your computer out of the box.

However, it is pretty easy to extend by writing AppleScript that gets executed by voice command. I don't know that one could build a truly complete voice-controlled UI with what OS X includes, though. You'd at least need to add something like ViaVoice for speech-to-text, since Apple's speech recognition doesn't do that itself. In any event, building the AppleScripts to accomplish every single task in all the applications you use would take a really really long time.