Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have used Dragon to dictate into my Electronic Health Record. I bought the basic version (the medical version price was prohibitive). I spent about an hour and a half 'training it'. It actually worked pretty well. It already new most of the medical jargon (like 'cholecystectomy') and the others it picked up very promptly. That was about 10 years ago and my new EMR does not require dictation mainly because I have learned to type almost as fast as I can talk. I have no idea if the newer versions are better, worse or about the same.
I cannot say I have the same degree of success with SIRI which usually gives me the answer to a question I didn't ask.
Years ago, the voice recognition programs weren't so hot, but today, the computers are a lot faster and the programs seem better. Even my phone seems to do a good job.
At work, I used to see documents created by others who apparently used voice recognition to dictate. And most of the time, they were OK, except that, once in a while, a word would occur in a sentence that absolutely did not belong there. They dictated one thing and the computer typed something else. So if you're going to use a dictation program, don't think you don't have to proofread what you create. You do.
I'll tell you why I love it. Did you ever, while writing whatever, have an incredbile idea but you had finish what you were writing first only to forget the idea? With recognition software, you can spit out all your thoughts quickly.
I used IBM's ViaVoice about 15 years ago for a semi long (100 page) technical document. My comments:
It took a while to learn my voice. It also took me a while for me to learn how to talk to it. Clearly stopping between each word worked best. This was years ago, I am sure they have improved in this aspect since. The edit commands ("delete word" "new line" etc. worked flawlessly)
At that time, context recognition was fair. I know this has improved.
The hardest part for me was the edit. I tend to skim read so I make a horrible editor anyway as a skimmer assumes it is written properly. My document was riddled with errors. I had to edit in sections as I could not stay focused too long. However, and this is the important part, I was able to speak freely without being encumbered by typing so the basic thoughts flowed properly. The edits were split in segments but that is not a big deal. If I were typing the document instead, my thoughts would have been broken in segments and I don't think it would have flowed as well. So, all in all, I am not sure I saved any time using ViaVoice but I do believe it produced a better document. The project probably took a month, 1 week of dictation and 3 weeks for editing. The editing was largely replacing words, not rewriting passages.
These days, the voice recognition software has improved so much, I believe I would save time too.
If you open a Google Docs document in the Chrome browser, you can speak instead of write your text, and Google will transcribe it. I've found it to be fairly accurate.
But then, I always forget to say the punctuation marks, so it records all my words in a stream, and I have to go back and insert punctuation manually.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
