Speech Recognition

H

huck

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WOW!!!! I'm sure i'm late to see this feature but i just finally came across speech recognition on OS X. How impressed am I? I didn't even have to record my voice. Pretty exciting stuff!

Couple of questions though.

1. Since i have a Ti-book (first model), I have no audio in port. What options do i have as far as an external microphone?

2. How do i record my own voice commands? I see the preset ones, but what if i want to make my own for other applications?

3. How do i get speech recognition to close?

Peace.

Kev
 
1. Your best bet would be to get some kind of USB mic, not sure who makes them but they are out there.

2. As far as I know the existing commands are only scrips in the speakable items folder. Leading me to assume that if you where to create your own scrips and put them in you could use them. I'm not for sure on this one. Someone else may need to verify this.

3. By clicking the little off button on the speech control pane that says "Apple speakable items is"

Thats it!:)
 
I used speech recognition in OS 9 ALL the time. It was awesome, I could command it from anywhere in my rather small office to do just about anything. I called it "Tiffany"; if you have another name set, or you have it configured to use [ESCAPE], replace as necessary.

1. You can either buy a USB microphone or an analogue/USB converter, and use the same microphone you've always used.

2. You write an AppleScript to execute commands, place it in the Speakable items folder (~/library/speech/Speakable Items/) and then name it as the command. For example, for an AppleScript file called "Get my mail"
Code: 
tell application "Microsoft Entourage" to activate
then when you say "Tiffany, get my mail" it will execute the commands in the script called "get my mail". I even got my computer to shut down on command--very handy.

3. Use System Preferences; or say "Tiffany, turn speakable items off". :p
 
One of the speakable items is "Make this Application Speakable"

Which is a nice option for quickly adding an application, Like your browser. I have mine triggered to go to specified websites by simply saing. "Computer go to Apple"

Poof! Apple's website pops up.

Great tool, I wish we could get some real use out of it though. I would like to see it become more of an IBM Via Voice tool.. and take dictation etc.
 
Dictation would be nice to see. Does anyone know if any upgrades will be released when Jaguar comes out?
 
Huck,

I wouldn't think so. Apple has done very little that I can see with the Voice Recognition since it was created.

I fully expected it NOT to be in OSX. I was very happy to see it included. It suggests that Apple is going to update it soon, but so far no word as to when we could expect an upgrade.
 
I concur with evildan, speech recognition for dictation is far more complicated that parametrically analyzing someone's voice and trying to match it to a command, since there is a limited number of commands and the names vary rather strongly.

Dictation requires much stronger analyzation algorythms, and I don't expect to see it in the OS, like, ever.:p
 
So how well do the mikes pick up your voice? My last experience with voice input was on the PC side of things, and you basically had to yell at the computer to get above any kind of background noise (like someone breathing ;) ).
 
I think it's a mic/software combination to answer that question.

On my PC, I can use a good mic and Via Voice works great. Switch to my cheap mic and I can not get anything done in Via Voice.

Apple's internal mic (for the powerbooks) seem to be great. I have no problem using them at all.
 
the apple pro mic (the little drop shaped thingie that sits on my monitor) that i bought for around 15$ i think, from apple, works insanely well. It picks up my mom talking when she's in the kitchen. Granted, that's both good and bad. actually, i have an extra one if anyone is interested. it's not usb tho...
 
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