Voice Processing: Dragon Systems Adds Powerful, Easy-to-Use, Natural Language Commands, and Portable Dictation Features to Award-Winning Speech Recognition Software

Edge: Work-Group Computing Report, July 13, 1998

Dragon Systems, Inc. (http://www.dragonsystems.com), announced Monday the release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 3.0, the newest version of its award-winning continuous speech recognition software that includes support of either British- or American-English dialects on one CD.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 3.0 is available in three multiple-user editions: Standard, Preferred and Professional, and offers users of higher-speed computers even higher recognition accuracy with its new BestMatch technology. Other major enhancements include new Natural Language Commands, which allow users working in Microsoft Word to edit and format documents by speaking commands in a more natural way. Also included is an enlarged active vocabulary, and Dragon NaturallyMobile software, which makes it easy for the user to create documents via a handheld recorder, even when away from the computer. All editions come fully integrated into both of the two leading word processors, Microsoft Word 97 and Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, and include support of either British- or American-English dialects on one CD.

Dragon's International Sales and Marketing Director Andreas Widmer explains: "Dragon Systems takes great pride in delivering the most powerful speech recognition in the industry, but simplicity of use remains paramount. This is why we have made this new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking more flexible, letting users accomplish the same action with a range of spoken commands and freeing them from the need to learn specific command phrases."

Natural Language Commands build on the revolutionary Select-and-Say editing and formatting first introduced by Dragon Systems. Instead of requiring users to memorize a specific command, such as "bold that," the new Natural Language Commands recognize a wide variety of ways in which a user may issue a command. "Make that bold," "Bold the last paragraph," "Set font bold" will all accomplish the same task, as will many more conversational commands. Dragon NaturallySpeaking now recognizes hundreds of thousands of ways in which a person could issue a command; however, the user only needs to say what comes naturally.

Another innovation in the Preferred and Professional Editions is NaturallyMobile, a feature that makes it possible to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to transcribe speech recorded on a high-quality hand-held recorder. NaturallyMobile is ideal for the busy executive because it means minutes of meeting, reports, etc. can be recorded away from the office and later be turned automatically into text. NaturallyMobile also allows a user to save dictation as a standard wave file (.WAV), on a network server or as an email attachment, which can be stored or sent to another person working with those files.

DRAGON NATURALLYSPEAKING 3.0 AT A GLANCE All Editions: * Multiple users on a single system--each user teaches the system his or her accent and individual pronunciations during a 20-minute initial training period; the systems subsequently maintains a separate voice file for each user.

* Enlarged Active Vocabulary--comes with more than 62,000 words that are ready to use. A total of 230,000 words is on disk and can be automatically retrieved by the system. Each word contains spelling, pronunciation and language usage information for high accuracy. Users can customize the vocabulary by inserting up to 54,000 new words, proper names, and specialized terms.

* Select-and-Say--users can edit, format or correct words or phrases by voice. Additional Select-and-Say commands are included with the new version.

* NaturalText--enables users to dictate directly into virtually any Windows applications such as PowerPoint, Excel, Lotus SmartSuite, Corel WordPerfect and others.

* NaturalWord--allows dictation directly into Microsoft Word '97 and Corel WordPerfect 8 documents. Words and phrases can be edited, formatted or corrected by voice in the same document.

* Natural Language Commands--easy to use and easy to remember commands can be issued in a natural way to edit and format text within Microsoft Word '97.

* BestMatch Technology--offers higher levels of recognition accuracy for users of higher-speed (200 MHz and higher), higher-memory (48 MB RAM and higher) computers. At time of installation, the program prompts the user to select the larger vocabulary and speech model available under BestMatch. Preferred and Professional Editions:

* NaturallyMobile--users can create documents by speaking into a portable recording device, such as the Sony MZ-R30 or R50 palm-sized mini-disc recorder and the Norcom Model 2500 handheld dictation machine. NaturallyMobile enhances Dragon NaturallySpeaking by making it easier to transcribe the recordings right into the user's document.

* MouseGrid--users may move their mouse cursor to any point on the screen and click the mouse by saying a few words.

* Text-to-Speech--users can select any text passage on the screen to be read aloud by the computer in its own voice.

* Audio Playback of Speech--users can record their speech as they dictate, then select dictated text passages on the screen for Dragon NaturallySpeaking to play back for dictation verification. Professional Edition: