From a column a few weeks ago regarding speaking to voice activated devices, Microsoft came to mind. You are in all likelihood aware of Cortana the voice search that comes built into Windows 10 but there is more.
It all started many versions ago in Microsoft Word where you had the ability to speak to Word and it would type what you said. Well sort of. You had to first train it to recognize your voice. I remember testing it and having to read several sample texts to your computer for it to learn. If memory serves me correctly I had to read paragraph excerpts from Shakespeare, a couple of well-known novels and even a paragraph or two from The Wizard of Oz. Once that was completed it could clearly understand your speech patterns, accent, etc.
Then you could start it up in Word and start dictating your work. It would do a poor job nowhere near what it should be. You would get quite a few errors with grammar, punctuation, misunderstood words, with plurality always a mess. The last time I checked it, several years ago, it was not very good.
Microsoft recently announced a new foray into the dictation arena which is a free add in that works with Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Other than a microphone and speaker on your computer you need a couple of other things. A minimum of Windows 8.1, Office 2013 and .Net Framework 4.5.0 (.Net will be automatically installed if needed).
You can easily install this add in and get much more information at “Dictate.ms.” You no longer have to read sample text for “Dictate” to understand you. It uses data pulled from speech recognition in Cortana to convert speech to text on all Windows 10 devices. All the millions of Cortana users are contributing in all languages, dialects, accents, etc.
Now to my testing for accuracy. I read several paragraphs from the old Bard and from The Wizard of Oz. I tested the first time by reading aloud at my normal pace, not over enunciating or adding commas, question marks, etc. I got an accuracy rating, which includes all of the missed items from years ago, mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, of about 65%. Again, not fantastic.
The next way I tested was to speak more slowly, clearly and properly, especially when I used the word, “but” which it missed every time it was used in the first test. This time I got a better score at 87%. Much better; however, still not what I feel like it should be. However, I can see usages where it could be very helpful.
If you are not a great typist you could use Dictate to more quickly put the words on the “paper” and then carefully correct it. Or if you we unable to type it could be useful. But in my opinion for day-to-day work I do not believe it is up to speed…yet.
I dictated the above paragraph which you can see below and has about 88% accuracy.
“You are not a great typist. You could use dictate more quickly put the words on the paper and then carefully corrected. Or if you are unable to type that could be useful. But in my opinion for day to day work. I do not believe it is up to speed dot, dot, dot yet.”
I could have said, “period” three times and the ellipsis above would have worked.