I picked up via-voice executive '98 a couple of years ago. I was very impressed at the time. I installed, configured, and got to know the product. Within a month I had it permanently disabled, it added nothing to productivity. I spend a large part of my day composing specifications/documents/e-mails, etc., and I was thus disappointed......until about 6 months ago, I found the CD in my bottom drawer at work, and brought it home, installed it, and have used it successfully to play descent, civilisation, and other games where my co-ordination is the weak link in my experience.
Bottom line: voice recognition clutter's your desktop with the required headset-microphone, you get confused when the phone rings, and you get strange looks. Typically your productivity gets no boost. As far as I can tell, it is still an infant technology.
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I picked up via-voice executive '98 a couple of years ago. I was very impressed at the time. I installed, configured, and got to know the product. Within a month I had it permanently disabled, it added nothing to productivity. I spend a large part of my day composing specifications/documents/e-mails, etc., and I was thus disappointed... ...until about 6 months ago, I found the CD in my bottom drawer at work, and brought it home, installed it, and have used it successfully to play descent, civilisation, and other games where my co-ordination is the weak link in my experience.
Bottom line: voice recognition clutter's your desktop with the required headset-microphone, you get confused when the phone rings, and you get strange looks. Typically your productivity gets no boost. As far as I can tell, it is still an infant technology.