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We have seen outstanding results in Dragon NaturallySpeaking^® version 8.0 in all versions from Preferred, Medical, Professional, and Legal. We have had some customers contact us just to tell us how pleased they are with the speed and accuracy they are now getting with the newer version 8.0. As with each new release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, we see an exponential trend toward better speed and accuracy each and every time a new upgrade is released. Because the English language has so many words that sound alike, it may be difficult to expect 100% accuracy in the near future, however we have seen average accuracy rates between 98-99% which only require an initial 15 minute voice profile reading, and some use of features within the Accuracy Center such as “telling” Dragon NaturallySpeaking where to find a list of your documents to import words it does not already have in its vocabulary and also learn your writing style. These types of activities will help boost the speed and accuracy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking so that almost any user can get extremely high speech accuracy results and speeds just short of 160 words per minute.

Great News from Sony!

SONY ELECTRONICS UNVEILS NEW DIGITAL VOICE RECORDERS

ICD-CX50 Visual Voice Recorder Leads the Pack

LAS VEGAS, March 8, 2005 - Busy business professionals and students inundated with deadlines will lighten their workload with the newest selection of portable recording devices in Sony Electronics' 2005 line of voice recorders.
See the complete story here http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/5673
visit our complete line of Sony products

In The News

Sony Unveils Three New Digital Voice Recorders (ICD-CX50, ICD-B100, ICD-P210)
http://www.itpronto.com/content/118/502.html

Sony is First in Line
http://www.guidetohometheater.com/news/031605sony/

See Us At TEPR (Towards an Electronic Patient Record)
Even if you cannot attend the conference in Salt Lake City, click here during the show to see us and interact with our representatives.

Repetitive strain injury sufferers and slow typists rejoice, because voice recognition software is rapidly improving.
http://www.apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/E8586BE6DC9397CFCA256FAB00053507

Forum Showcases Technology Designed to Help Persons with Disabilities
http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-03-22-voa70.cfm

New Product Showcase:

The CC 550 is Sennheiser’s top-of-the-line binaural headset and offers powerful, precise sound to both ears for optimal understanding. Its durable construction makes it perfect for any type of office or professional communication.  

• ActiveGardTM safeguards the user from the effects of an acoustic burst
• Self-adjusting ball-mounted speaker capsules allow
• perfect fitting to the head
• 300° adjustable microphone boom allows microphone to
• be positioned exactly for optimal speech clarity. Teflon®*
• washer support increases positioning accuracy, stability
• and ensure optimal durability.
• Unique comfort pads in the headband and specially
• padded ear caps distribute pressure and ensure
• remarkable comfort even during extended wearing time
• Binaural headset ensures maximum block out of

background noise, increasing concentration and efficiency

Features x-large, padded ear caps to block out a maximum of noise and substantially improve concentration and comfort. Ultra Noise Canceling blocks out a maximum of ambient noise, making your voice easier to understand.

Forward Magazine’s Book of the Year Award Finalist

 

If you know someone with heart disease or prostate disease, you’ll want to read about a discovery by NASA scientists that has led to reversal of these illnesses, as well as early detection of heart problems in people who show no outward symptoms.

 

Perhaps you’ve also seen news stories this month about studies showing that contrary to popular perception, calcium supplements don’t help to prevent bone fractures in older people who suffer from osteoporosis – a new book helps to explain why.

Many of you know that we are distributors for the best-selling book The Calcium Bomb about a new approach to heart disease and other medical disorders.  This book is now a Finalist for Book of the Year and has frequently been at the top of the Health Section of Amazon.com since its publication. Buy it now!

Tips, Tricks and a Glossary

Since most of our VR News subscribers have previously purchased a version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking from us, we thought you might find the following information extremely helpful whether you currently use Dragon NaturallySpeaking or are thinking of utilizing the product in the future.  We have taken excerpts from the online users guide to provide a short list of commands, tips and a glossary which we know you will find extremely helpful for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Tips for dictating text

• Dragon NaturallySpeaking can automatically add periods and commas for you when you dictate. To turn on this feature, click Options on the Tools menu of the DragonBar and select the "automatically add commas and periods" option on the Formatting tab.
• To erase the last thing you said, say "Scratch That."
• You can repeat "Scratch That" to undo a sequence of phrases. If you know how many previous phrases you want to undo, you can say "Scratch That <x> Times," where <x> is the number of phrases.
• To undo the effects of a command, say "Undo That."
• To stop a recognition in progress (and turn the microphone off), click the small red button inside the Results box.
• You can change the very last phrase you spoke by saying "Bold That," "Cap That," "Correct That," and so on; you do not have to select the text first.
• To remove a trailing space after a word, you can say "Delete Previous Character."
• You can create a spoken form for words you prefer not to say aloud. For example, you can create a text command that types "Snookums" whenever you say "Mary's nickname."
• To clear (i.e. deselect) your last selection, say "Unselect That."

Tips for correcting text

• If you select a misrecognized word and the correct word is not on the Correction menu, you can say "Spell That" to open the Spell dialog box and then spell the word.
• In the Spell dialog box, you can edit a choice that is almost correct. Say "Select 3," for example, then edit the text by using the Spell dialog box commands or the keyboard.
• When you correct a misrecognized word, the program is less likely to misrecognize that word in the future.
• You can press the minus (-) key on the numeric keypad to open the Correction menu. Pressing this key is the same as saying "Correct That."
• While the Correction menu is open, you can press the Right Arrow key to select the next word or phrase to correct.

Tips for increasing recognition accuracy

• The Accuracy Center provides "one-stop shopping" for all the tools you can use to improve your accuracy and add words to your vocabulary. Say "Display Accuracy Center" or click Accuracy Center on the DragonBar Tools menu.
• If you are not sure which of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking tools you need to use, let the Accuracy Center help you. With the Accuracy Center open, click or say "Which tool should I use?" to start the Accuracy Assistant.
• The best way to improve recognition accuracy is to speak clearly and enunciate each word. You do not have to speak loudly or slowly, just avoid mumbling or slurring your words.
• You can optimize recognition accuracy by speaking in long, well-enunciated phrases or sentences. Speaking slowly and deliberately, in short phrases or single words, can actually result in more recognition errors. Longer phrases provide more context, which helps Dragon NaturallySpeaking recognize individual words.
• If a particular word is regularly misrecognized or you want to give the word an alternate pronunciation, use the Training dialog box to train it. To open the Training dialog box say "Train Words" or click Train on the DragonBar Words menu.
• If you change audio hardware or move to another location, you should run the Audio Setup Wizard again. You do not have to create a new user. To open the Audio Setup Wizard, open the Accuracy Center and either click or say "Check your audio settings."
• Use the Increase Accuracy from E-Mail tool to add the names of your e-mail contacts and to teach Dragon NaturallySpeaking about your personal writing style and vocabulary by analyzing your sent e-mail messages. This can significantly improve recognition accuracy. This tool is on the Accuracy Center. Say "Display Accuracy Center" or click Accuracy Center on the DragonBar Tools menu and then say or click "Increase Accuracy from E-Mail."

Other useful tips

• Want to find a command? Use the Command Browser. Say "Open Command Browser" or click Command Browser on the DragonBar Tools menu. You can search for any command in Dragon NaturallySpeaking, even custom commands that you have created.
• It is normal for words in the Results box to change sometimes while you are dictating. Dragon NaturallySpeaking may better recognize what you said after you complete a phrase or sentence.
• When you say a command, the border of the Results box turns blue to indicate that Dragon NaturallySpeaking understands what you said as a command and not dictation. The exceptions to this are commands such as "New-Line," "New-Paragraph," or "All-Caps," which you normally say in the process of dictating, without pausing.
• You can see a list of the last few recognition results. Say "View Recognition History" or click View Recognition History on the DragonBar Words menu.
• A good way to find out whether or not a word is in the active vocabulary is to type it in Vocabulary Editor (Say "Open Vocabulary Editor" or click View/Edit on the DragonBar Words menu). If the word appears in the list, it is already in the vocabulary; if it does not appear, you can click the Add button to add it.
• You can view only the words you added to the vocabulary by saying "Open Vocabulary Editor" or clicking View/Edit on the DragonBar Words menu and then selecting Show Custom Words Only from the Display list in the Vocabulary Editor.
• You can get help at any time by saying "Give Me Help."
• Say "What Can I Say?" to see a list of sample commands you can say in the current application you are using.

·         Select the Show Extras check box on the View tab of the Options dialog box to display the Extras tools on the DragonBar when you first start Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Glossary:

Controls -- menus, menu listings, buttons, check boxes etc. The items you normally click on to boss the computer around.

Continuous speech dictation -- not conversational, but no pausing between dictated words (discrete speech).

Command macros -- wherein the user makes a voice command that captures one or more actions. Examples: "Print three copies," "save this to floppy."

Command and control -- refers to the speech utterances that tell your computer what action to take. Examples: "File menu," "switch to Microsoft Outlook."

Correction -- when the software goofs, you tell it what you really said. It "learns" from this exercise. Correction is different from editing.

Dictation macros -- think of boilerplate, or Microsoft Word's AutoText

Dictation playback -- wherein you hear what you dictated in your own voice so you can fix misrecognitions, for example.

Microsoft Active Accessibility -- wherein the controls (menus, buttons etc.) "reveal themselves" to other programs for accessibility.

Misrecognition -- the software chooses a word other than what you said.

Modeless -- commands and dictation together.

Select 'n' Say, Select and Say -- term coined by Dragon Systems referring to the ability to select a word or phrase with a single voice command. For example, Select and Say means you could say "Select coined by Dragon Systems" to highlight that phrase in the previous sentence. Once selected the phrase can be replaced with new dictation, or deleted, or cut for pasting elsewhere, or corrected in the case of mistaken transcription by the speech recognition engine. Without this ability, editing would require either mouse or keyboard action, or a multitude of voice commands like "move up two lines," "move back five words," "select previous four words," etc. NaturallySpeaking was followed by ViaVoice, Voice Xpress and FreeSpeech in deploying this feature. The same feature allows the user to say "Correct ." Natural language commands -- wherein the computer does the work and translates what we say into action, rather than we the people issuing set commands determined by the computer.

Text-to-speech -- wherein a computer voice reads what's on screen.

Training -- wherein you read text that is already known to the software program. The software then analyzes your voice sample against the known text and uses that information to make your "voice files." (This is also known as enrollment.) Training can also occur when you record a word for the software to learn individually.

USB mike -- a device that does the job of a sound card as well as a mike.

Vocabulary -- the words that the software knows. Some of the vocabulary is "active," and that includes words and phrases you've taught it. Many misrecognitions occur because the software doesn't know the word you're saying.

Voice mousing -- controlling the mouse pointer and clicks by voice.

Sound card -- the device that translates the analog signal (your voice as passed from the mike to the device) into digital form so the computer can process it.

Specials This Month

Package solutions offer one-stop shopping and valuable savings when compared to purchasing all items individually. We have built eight various packages to accommodate just about any user from the student to the busy physician dictating lengthy patient reports daily. Click here now to see our full line of package solutions and be assured that you will have all items you need in one shipment which takes the guesswork out of which additional accessories and other hardware you may require for your environment. As always, call us at 1-800-245-2133 with any questions whatsoever or e-mail us at info@voicerecognition.com and will be happy to help you select the most appropriate package for you.

Seeing (and Hearing) Is Believing? On-Site and Online Demos Available!

Do you want to see for yourself how great Dragon NaturallySpeaking or the iCommunicator products really are? We can show you live right from our office here in South Florida just how quick and easy you can compose lengthy documentation with nothing more than your voice. Our online demonstrations allow us to share screens so that you see what we see and hear us as we read your text.

We can also find a solutions partner in your area who can do on-site demonstrations for the professional series of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Use this form to request the type of demonstration you're looking for. http://voicerecognition.com/download/

Tech Tips

·         If you are not sure which of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking tools to use, let the accuracy center help you.  With the accuracy center open, click or say "Which tool should I use?"   to start the accuracy assistant.

·         It is normal for words in the results box to change sometimes when you are dictating.  Dragon NaturallySpeaking may better recognize what you said after you complete a phrase or sentence.

·         You can see a list of the last few recognition results.  Say “view recognition history” or click of the recognition history on the DragonBar words menu.

·         You can get help at any time by saying “Give Me Help”.

Finally, with the advances in digital recorder technology and microphone quality we think it may be only a few short years before keyboard and mouse slowly become phased out in favor of voice recognition dictation and voice command and control of a PC and operating system. While the keyboard and mouse may always be around to some degree, as wrist injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, repetitive stress injuries and other medical conditions affecting hands and wrists continue to rise, we feel that voice recognition technology will soon become the de facto standard way to input information into a PC and control all PC operations.

As specialists in voice recognition software and accessories, we offer specialized consultation and online training for all of our products.  Anyone can sell voice recognition software, just be sure that you will get the technical support in training needed to use the product most successfully.  Contact us at any time using the information below and we will be happy to assist you in any way we can.