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Re: [Phys-l] Voice recognition



On 11/26/2007 12:30 PM, John SOHL wrote:

managed to smash my left thumb with a
large pipe. It will be in a splint for weeks.

Bummer!

I was thinking of trying Dragon.

1) There's a useful review at
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,1996759,00.asp

2) Don't skimp on the microphone. A MSO (microphone-shaped
object) from Rat Shack is not an adequate substitute for
a real microphone.

You want a microphone you can wear on your head. Position
it at the corner of your mouth, not right in front (to
avoid what we call "nose noise").

3) The software will eat up a lot of memory and a lot of CPU
cycles.

4) Don't expect too much from speech recognition. Splint or
no splint, you might well find it easier to type than to
dictate. It might be worthwhile to pursue typing options.

-- Ask the doc if there is any way to make the splint less
bulky. There's lots of different kinds of splints in the
world.

-- There are some "ergonomic" split keyboards that split
the left-hand keys from the right-hand keys, and mount
each batch of keys at a funny angle. This doesn't improve
the mobility of the hurt hand, but at least it keeps it
from interfering with the other hand.

If you can touch-type with one hand and peck with the other,
that gets you within 2x of normal typing speed, which is
probably better than you could do with speech recognition.