voice recognition

[JamesEverton]

How good is voice recognition technology these days. Why don't we just speak to our computers more?

[vehelpfulguy]

My son has special needs and has just been given a laptop with Dragon Naturally Speaking on it.

One of the problems is that the software needs to "learn" the ways you speak before it can build up a pattern to your speech. 

My son has had to sit and read and reread text so the computer can begin to understand him.

Even the guy who was teaching him used his own computer to say "sandwich" and it typed out "so and which".

When he tried to correct it and say the individual letters for sandwich, when he said "a" the computer kept typing "k". 

Until we get software that can recognize every language and every accent and every way of pronoucing a word we are never going to get "walk up and use" speech computers.   

[JamesEverton]

vehelpfulguy thanks for your reply. I had always thought that you had to train the system and speak very slowly but when I was buying a new mobile phone the other day they were trying to get me to sign up to a thing that turns the voicemails that people leave for you into text messages. The guy showed it to me and it seemed to work pretty well. It's amazing that the technology can understand different voices. I didn't sign up, though, because it seemed a pretty pointless service.

[OBonio]

I phoned the freview coverage line and it (the computer) asked me tell it my postcode. Now, I've moved around a lot in my time (dad in the RAF) and so my accent is very neutral. I must admit I mumble sometimes, but only after a few pints. Could I get this thing to understand me? Not on your nelly.

What computers aren't very good at is filling in missing information (like a dropped T). And without complete information, they are liable to make stupid and silly mistakes, The human brain can make sense of it somehow.

[Gandy]

I wouldn't like the missus being able to hear what I'm looking for on Google ;-)