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Mac Version of NaturallySpeaking Launched

Posted by kdawson on from the listen-what-i-say dept.

WirePosted writes "MacSpeech, the leading supplier of speech recognition software for the Mac, has canned its long-running iListen product and has launched a Mac version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the top-selling Windows speech recognition product. MacSpeech had made a licensing agreement with Dragon's developer, Nuance Communications. The new product is said to reach 99% accuracy after 5 minutes of training."

3 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Talking to oneself by flyingfsck · · Score: 4, Informative

    I tried Dragon a number of times, but it feels too much like talking to oneself. Training it is a chore too. 99% accuracy after 5 minutes is probably true, but I type much better than that. I suppose it will be great for people who either can't type properly or are lysdexic.

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    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  2. Dragon is a NIGHTMARE. by Caspian · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've worked with Nuance's server product in the Dragon NaturallySpeaking line as a developer. Their API is confusing, their speech recognition SUCKS, and their software bugs out in bizarre ways. It's also slow as a dog, and advanced functionality (like recognizing from wav files, as opposed to from a live audio stream) is so poorly implemented as to seem bolted on.

    And the worst part? Nuance has a virtual monopoly in realistically priced (read: "in a budget that a normal small-to-medium-sized business can afford") general-purpose speech recognition systems. If I recall correctly, they bought out Lernout and Hauspie's speech recognition products and IBM's old consumer-level speech-recognition stuff. So you can't take your business elsewhere; there is no "elsewhere".

    I loathe those guys.

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    With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
  3. It's a good thing, too. by benmhall · · Score: 3, Informative

    My wife needed voice dictation software a year or two ago. She had been a Linux user. I gave her my PowerBook and bought iListen for her. It was terrible. And it was a resource hog. It used the Philips engine and, even with extensive training, was the pits. We even tried several high-quality mics to no avail.

    She went from my G4/1.5GHz/1.25GB RAM PowerBook running iListen to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 on an IBM ThinkPad T23. (P3 1GHz, 768MB RAM, WinXP.) The difference was night and day. Not only did Dragon run much faster on the lowly P3, but the quality of speech recognition was _much_ better. As a result of this, she's now back to being a Windows user with Dragon.

    At least it looks like our iListen purchase won't be a complete waste, as we can use it to upgrade to NaturallySpeaking for Mac. I'm glad that MacSpeech has killed iListen. It needed it. It was an embarrassment compared to Dragon.

    Speech recognition has been a big hole in the Mac's software line-up. It looks like that is finally coming to an end. Now if only someone would release something that works for Linux.* I know that we'd have paid $200 for something approaching Dragon 8's capabilities.

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    *Yes, I know about IBM ViaVoice. Good luck getting that to work on any recent distribution. I also know about Sphinx. Unfortunately, it seems to be a perpetual research tool rather than an end-user program.