For general sentences however, it gets it right almost all the time. Yes, it gets caught on unusual company names, and it also does not get right the first time some of the product names that I deal with with my job. It does however get what I'm saying correct remarkably most of the time. Does it interpret my speech 100% accurately all of the time? No, of course not. How well has it worked? Well so far, so good.
For the last two weeks I have been using the software to dictate my meeting notes, and also in some cases to reply to e-mails.
Apart from the software CD and a quick install and user guide card, it also came with a basic wired headset. So I went out and bought Dragon Naturally Speaking version 11, Premium edition. While I would not describe my accent as a broad Australian accent, I clearly say some words in an Australian way and I imagine this would be difficult for software that is not expecting it. My laptop now is much more powerful than when I used it last time, and also I had heard that the more recent versions were better with their accuracy when it came to interpreting non-United States accents. Two weeks ago however, I decided to try voice recognition software again. Anyone who has been in a meeting and needs to capture information that is being said very quickly knows that your writing tends to suffer as you quickly scribble it down. Again however unless I really wrote slowly and took care with what I was writing, the accuracy was pathetic. Also later, LiveScribe released software that enabled my hand written notes to be turned into typed notes. This worked in the sense that it gave me my notes in a digital form and I could even record the meetings and then later hear the audio that matched the text that I wrote down in the notepad. Then I tried using a LiveScribe digital pen. A few years ago I also tried some voice recognition software but found at the time that my laptop was barely capable of running the progam and the accuracy was woeful. I found however that I would never get around to listening to the recordings and then typing them into a final report. I tried using a small recorder to record the meetings I attended and then turn them into notes later. In the past I've tried different ways to get around this problem. It is one thing to quickly make bullet point notes in my notebook with my pen during a meeting, but it is then another to take these turn them into a cohesive and easy to read report. I do find however that sometimes it is easier to keep putting off sitting down and typing these reports, especially when I need to think through the words that I want to use first. I certainly have no real problem with generating typed notes, as I can type quite quickly, probably quicker than I can type.
In my line of work it is necessary to regularly write notes about meetings I've had with customers and our business partners, plus general sales reports. Just for a change I thought I would write about some new gadget or technology that I've been using lately.