The Dragon voice recognition products from Nuance – NaturallySpeaking for Windows & Dragon Dictate for Mac – are not just a useful aid for teachers and educators but are also fast becoming essential tools for learning in our schools and universities for students too. Allowing children to speak their thoughts and not be held back by the speed of their typing which lets creativity flow. Helping children with their spoken diction and instantly showing the correct spelling of words as they are spoken are a huge benefit. That coupled with the fact that students are comfortable using computers it makes sense for schools and universities to be looking at this speech recognition technology. In summary benefits of speech recognition technology for students and educators include:

• Improves core reading and writing skills for students of all abilities
• Helps students with language-based learning disabilities more easily express themselves in writing
• Provides accessibility for teachers and students with physical disabilities that hamper typing
• Bridges English Language Learners’ oral and  written communication skills
• Prepares students to use emerging interfaces in the 21st century workforce
• Enables teachers to prepare more detailed assessments of student work through dictation

This is where we, Dictate Australia, can help as certified Gold Nuance Australia resellers. We can supply site education licences for learning facilities across Australia. This not only opens you up to larger discounts on Nuance pricing but also makes your software asset management more manageable compared to buying odd licences ad hoc. The licensing of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Windows computers) and Dragon Dictate (for Macs) is slightly different for educational purposes than it is for commercial or government bulk licensing the differences being:

Commercial / Government – Dragon Site Licensing

• Dragon is licensed per VOICE profile, which allows a licensed user to install it on multiple machines, ie their work machine, a laptop, as well as their home machine. The EULA (End User LIcence Agreement) also allows a third party (ie secretary or personal assistant) to have it installed on their machine PURELY for use in transcription (relevant only for Premium & Pro Dragon NaturallySpeaking).

Educational – Dragon Site Licensing

• For Education users the site licence model is simpler, Dragon is licensed per machine. Each machine is free to have multiple users on that computer. If a teacher or educator requires Dragon for work and home use, they would therefore require TWO licenses.

For the purposes of this post we are focusing on the Nuance education site volume licence. Essentially there are five price points for each software licence depending on the number or licences you own, obviously the more licences purchases the cheaper the product becomes. An educational VLA (volume licence agreement) can be started with as little as five licences. The five price point levels kick in based on these number of licences:

• Level A 5-49
• Level B 50-199
• Level C 200-499
• Level D 500-1999
• Level E 2000+

Buying Dragon under a Volume Licence Agreement will give you a single Valsonic Analogue Headset/Mic with each licence purchased. These headsets are fine for basic use, we can work with you to provide higher quality Plantronics USB noise cancelling headsets/mics for Mac or Windows if required.

As an optional but highly recommended extra is a Maintenance & Support agreement. There is a one to one relationship, one licence requires one maintenance agreement, and will give you Nuance technical support and all updates, upgrades and service packs released during the term of the active one year maintenance agreement. Maintenance and support can be renewed yearly and costs 15% of the original licence cost and is the only ongoing costs associated with Nuance Dragon site licenses.

If you are considering voice recognition technology for your school, university or TAFE please give me a call to discuss (Dave Holmes 0403 968 672) or send me an email (dave@dictate.com.au). I can run through the associated costs and look at an initial pilot for you to evaluate the software.

More details on Dragon for Education including some sample applications using Dragon, testimonials and white papers on the Nuance Australia website – click here.

One of the social media tweaks added to Dragon Dictate, voice recognition for Mac, in its recent upgrade from version 2.0 to 2.5 was the ability to post status messages directly to Facebook and Twitter simply using a voice command. With so many of us using twitter these days it was an obvious add-in to make by Nuance. So just how easy is it to tweet using your voice?

Piece of cake, I just did my first voice tweet and like a new born baby I filmed it for the memories. It’s quick and easy. The steps are:

1. Say “Post to twitter“
2. A pop-up dialogue box appears, just talk your tweet.
3. When you are done say “Press tweet“

That is it. For those of you who can’t quite visualise it, here is the video.

Before you actually launch into tweeting you will need to configure your twitter account in the Dragon Dictate preferences. {Dictate -> Preferences => Sharing}

This feature is also available to Windows users who own Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 11.5 and up.

One of the most common searches that end up with visitors landing on my blog is people looking for a trial version of Dragon Dictate for the Mac. Good idea, it is quite a hefty purchase price for some software that most know little about and therefore the cost vs risk factor is high. A trial version would be a good lead into the software and would allow people to have a play, see how accurate it is and become more comfortable before committing to a purchase. Great idea but alas a free trial version is not available.

As a compromise Nuance have just released to the Mac App Store Dragon Express for a cut down, yet still significant price of $US49.99 (AU$51.99). This app is an excellent introduction into voice recognition on the Mac and is essentially a cut down version of Dragon Dictate 2.5 – Nuance’s flagship speech recognition product for the Mac.

So how does it work?

Similar to Dragon Dictate you will need to train your voice in Dragon Express, this creates your personal profile and allows the Dragon speech recognition engine to understand the way you speak. This task takes only two minutes and involves reading some pre-defined text so the app can listen to how you speak. (Note: if you decide to upgrade to Dragon Dictate your trained Dragon Express voice profile will not be compatible with Dragon Dictate, you will have to train a new voice profile, but hey only takes 5 minutes in Dragon Dictate). Nuance claim that the in-built mic in your Mac can be used but from years of experience a good quality noise cancelling USB headset and mic will give you better results, no support for the Dragon Microphone iPhone app . Already reading some of the App Store reviews there are alot of negative comments, most based around accuracy, I would be willing to bet a couple of dollars that is because of using the in built mic. Good quality speech recognition relies on good quality audio input with minimal or no background noise.

Dragon Express also differs from the fully fledged Dragon Dictate version in that you can only dictate into the Dragon Express window, here you will see your words transcribed into text. From the Dragon Express window you can then post or route the transcribed text to any active app – so for example into TextEdit, twitter, Facebook, Google+, email or a Word or Pages document.

If you are interested in giving speech recognition a try then this is an excellent and cost effective way to see what it is all about. Not quite a free trial but a good general overview of the Dragon speech recognition technology and the great work Nuance are doing in the Apple space. I would like to see a discount off Dragon Dictate 2.5 if you have Dragon Express installed but until Dragon Dictate appears in the Mac App Store this is a tricky one to manage and therefore isn’t yet available. If you have more questions on Dragon Express which I have not covered head over to the Nuance – Dragon Express FAQ.

Be warned, it’s a hefty download at 1.21Gb (Lion only – OS X 10.7) – virtually all of that download will be the dictionary that Dragon uses that holds words and context.

Have you tried Dragon Express? Let me know what you thought by leaving a comment.

Below is a video demo of Dragon Express for Mac in action from the “Ask The Dictator” series of YouTube video from Nuance. This gives you a good basic overview of Dragon Express in action, interesting on the post to twitter that the you can not dictate to click the OK button but still need to mouse click, which clearly shows the cut down nature of this software. I still think it is an excellent buy if you want to see how voice recognition works. At the time of posting this blog post there were only five comments on the YouTube video, most of them highly critical – I state again, using the in-built MacBook or iMac mic will not give highly accurate results, do yourself a favour and buy yourself a USB noise cancelling headset and mic before you try this software.

Now that we have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 for Windows and Dragon Dictate 2.5 for Mac fully social in the sense that using them they can both post to Twitter or Facebook using voice only we thought it might be useful to track down some of the Nuance and Dragon related twitter id’s for you to interact with.

Official Nuance Twitter Accounts

@OzDragonTweets - official twitter id of Nuance for voice recognition for both Mac and Windows. Australian based account.

@DragonTweets – official twitter id of Nuance for voice recognition for both Mac and Windows. US based account.

@NuanceMobile – Nuance Mobile – the offical Nuance twitter account for mobile related voice recognition. This doesn’t just cover smartphones and apps but also encompasses SatNav’s (or PNDs Person Nav Devices are they are being commonly called), cars and anything else mobile voice related. US based account.

@NuanceUK – Covers all things Nuance (not just voice recognition) from as you would expect a UK perspective.

Tweeters Worth Following For Voice Related Info

@dictates – that’s us !! Obviously we need to have a mention of ourselves. We don’t just tweet about digital voice but also tech news that grabs our attention.

@DragonDictator – Nuance management, Peter Mahoney is Senior Vice President of Dragon for Nuance in in Massachusetts.

@VoicePower – UK based, covering all things digital voice not just speech recognition but digital dictation and transcription also.

@CSTI_matt (AKA KnowBrainer) – KnowBrainer are a top resource not just for news but also all things digital voice support out of the US. Tapping into their blog RSS feed is a must if you crave digital voice news.

No, is the short answer. Voice or speech recognition software will only successfully work with one spoken voice and that spoken voice, for best results, needs to have trained the software to understand their voice and style of speaking known as creating a voice profile. Most people who use voice recognition software typically pop on a headset and mic and chat away to their Windows PC or Mac and watch as their voice is magically (or using the Dragon voice recognition engine if you don’t believe in magic) converted to text.

Voice recognition is currently going through a spike in popularity, especially since the release of the iPhone 4S running iOS5 with Siri, which has raised awareness of just how good voice recognition technology has evolved over the last couple of years, Nuance being the company leading the way in this technology on Mac, Windows and now inside iOS5 working closely with Apple.

Because of this everyone now has an iPhone which is capable of recording audio and most who need to capture important meetings or interviews also have a high quality digital voice recorder. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium and Professional edition on Windows and MacSpeech Scribe on the Mac can take recorded audio and transcribe it, that is only for that single trained person who is speaking. So it is understandable that the leap is often made that if it can transcribe one voice it can transcribe many, not so. The technology is not there yet and in my opinion won’t be for quite some time.

Nuance on their website cleverly have a couple of pages dedicated to Transcribing Interviews or Transcribing Lectures using a technique called voice writing or parroting. The idea is simple, you record your interview, meeting, lecture or whatever it is that has multiple voices or a single voice that you can not get trained in Dragon (possibly the voice of someone making a speech or presenting at a conference). Then when you are sitting in front of your Windows PC or Mac (in this case running Dragon Dictate, not MacSpeech Scribe) you listen to your recorded audio and you speak what you hear. Therefore it is your trained voice that Dragon hears as you are repeatings other peoples words from your recording. Sounds simple doesn’t it – it isn’t, I have tried it a few times and have become extremely frustrated. You may find that the voice you are listening to is too fast for you to remember and repeat back which means you are constantly stopping and rewinding the audio, which on an iPhone app or basic digital voice recorder is not always that easy. You will likely often have to stop the audio to correct mistakes made by Dragon, maybe when unfamiliar names or terms are used which have not been trained into your user profile. It will work but it does take a lot of concentration and a large amount of practice, you can give it a try just search YouTube for a boardroom meeting and see if you can repeat what you hear while wearing a headset and mic.

So what are your practical options for transcribing audio or video of meetings and interviews or in fact any audio that you need turned from voice to text?

Option 1 – Type The Audio Yourself

You could transcribe the audio yourself using some specialised transcription software to help you, transcription is the process of typing what you hear. When I say help it won’t actually do the work of typing it for you but it will assist greatly with the audio playback. For example if you are a slow typist you could slow the speed of audio playback down to match your typing speed or conversly also speed up the audio if your fingers are a blur when you type. Using transcription software you can also easily rewind the audio, again set up to match your typing ability so you could either rewind back half a second or if you are a poor typist like me rewind the audio back up to 5 seconds. The biggest benefit of using transcription software is that audio can be controlled from inside the word processor that you are typing in. By that I mean using a USB connected foot pedal or pre-defined keys on your keyboard you can stop/play/rewind the audio without leaving the document that you are typing. This is a huge time saver, often people try to transcribe using Windows Media Player or Quicktime for their audio playback and they have to constantly switch between they document to the audio player to stop/rewind/play and then back to the document which adds a considerable amount of time to the whole transcribing process.

Pros Of Doing It Yourself

• Cost, from the point of view that you are not paying someone else to do the work.
• Cost, from the point of view that transcription software is free or relatively cheap depending on what you buy.

Cons Of Doing It Yourself

• It is hard work and not as easy as it sounds.
• Transcription typing does take a long time even if you are experienced.

Just as an indication of how long transcription takes, a good quality one hour audio file of an interview between two people would take an experienced transcription typist around 2-3 hours to transcribe. If you are not experienced expect that to rise to 4-5 hours and without the help of transcription software even longer.

Transcription Software

• Express Scribe from NCH Software – $FREE
• Express Scribe Pro from NCH Software – approx. AU$40 – Click Here To Buy Express Scribe PRO – Plays .dss .ds2 .dct .dvf .avi .mov .wmv audio and video files.
• Olympus AS-2400 Digital Transcription Kit – Includes software, headset and USB foot pedal – RRP AU$425 but usually it sells online for less. Windows & Mac compatible.

Option 2 – Outsource To A Professional Transcription Service

If you need your audio transcribed quickly and accurately then this option is for you. Just Google transcription service and see how many businesses are listed both organically and in the paid Google ads. Transcription has become a boom business over the last few years and that makes total sense. With the availability and high quality of digital voice recorders and iPhone apps just about everyone is recording their meetings, interviews, podcasts, vodcasts, focus groups, lectures, letters, assessments the list goes on. It is great to have a record of your meeting and the like stored digitally which can be easily shared within your business on your intranet or with the world on the internet but more often than not a written transcript is also required for offline reading, compliance or for public record. There are all kinds of reasons audio and video is transcribed into text these days.

This is where a professional transcription service can come in to help you. Simply send them your digital audio or video via the internet and they can set to work using their team of experienced transcription typists to convert your voice to text. Here is a security tip, always make sure that the transcription service you use has their own secure file server and that the data you send them is encrypted either using FTPS (not FTP) or HTTPS (not HTTP) – this is important for two reasons. 1. your audio/video is encrypted as it travels across the internet from you to their servers. 2. by ensuring they run their own secure server they will have full control and access over what happens on that server. Many transcription services use third party providers like SendThisFile.com and they nor you have any control over your data on that third parties servers. Ask any transcription service that you approach about their security and file transfer mechanisms. Many still use FTP and not FTPS, transferring files across FTP alone does not encrypt the file contents, be it audio, video or worse still your transcribed documents.

Any good professional transcription service will turn your audio around quickly and the final transcript will very accurate. Typically there are two phases to the transcription process; phase 1 is the transcription typist who listens and types your audio/video to text. Phase 2 is a quality assurance phase, a proofreader will listen to your audio and proof against what has been transcribed. This double verifies the typists work and the document can be formatted to your specific requirements. Obviously we recommend The Transcription People, not just because this is our sister company but because they are leaders in the transcription industry in Australia who service clients not only from Australia but also the US and Europe

As audio and video for transcription is mainly digital you can utilise the services of a transcription company anywhere in the world, you may want to do this for cost benefit reasons but more often than not to take advantage of time zones. Many UK and US businesses will use the services of Australian based transcription companies for just this reason as Australia tends to work their business day as Europe and the US sleep.

Pros

• Speed, this is a transcription services core business. Reputable companies will turn around audio and video very quickly.
• Accuracy, again as a core business this is how transcription services are rated from a customers point of view. A good transcription firm will always produce high quality accurate transcriptions because of the two phase approach.
• Ability to adapt, regardless of how much audio or video you send you should always expect the same fast, accurate turn around of transcripts.
• You don’t have to do it so you can focus your time on more productive work.

Cons

• Cost is the only con, you are paying for a service so compared to you doing it yourself there will be a cost involved. Obviously the larger more reputable transcription companies will have different rates from the work from home type of micro transcription service.

So there you have it ! Reasons why Dragon NaturallySpeaking for Windows or MacSpeech Scribe for Apple Mac are not good for transcribing meetings or interviews and the options you have open to you to convert recorded audio or video into text.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking from Nuance, currently at version 11.5, can use a digital recording of your spoken voice and transcribe that into text (Premium and Professional versions only), this is commonly referred to as deferred transcription. With so many people now owning either a digital voice recorder and/or an iPhone or iPad with a voice recording app the question is often asked “is the recording quality good enough for use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking?“.

Luckily the nice people at Nuance have a quick and easy way for you to check, via the Nuance Hardware Compatibility website. This site shows compatibility for all Nuance software but you can specifically drill down on Dragon NaturallySpeaking and then look through the Recorders (current) or Recorders (legacy) for older digital voice recorders.

The Nuance Hardware Compatibility website is also worth a visit if you are planning to buy a new microphone or mic and headset combo for use with Dragon Naturally Speaking as these too are listed and given a Dragon accuracy score out of six, the more dragons the better the accuracy. We like the Plantronics DSP-400 and have been promoting that for a few years now. The DSP-400 achieved a six dragon accuracy score and is an excellent all round headset/mic combo which is both Mac and Windows compatible, works with Skype also.

Currently the only universal (iPhone and iPad) voice recording app which is listed as compatible is the awesome Andrea Pure Audio Live Recorder app (found in the Recorders (current) dropdown which achieves five out of six dragons. I have this app on my iPhone 4 running iOS5 and it works beautifully, the app also works on the 3GS iPhone.

With all the flurry of activity over the last week with Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) being released along with an upgrade to Dragon Dictate from 2.0 to 2.5 we have had a few calls into our office regarding compatibility of MacSpeech Scribe with Lion.

Nuance have recently posted an update on their website (click here) which is important to read if you are one of these customers:

• Dragon Dictate 2.0 – upgrade to Lion YES
• MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 – upgrade to Lion YES
• MacSpeech Scribe – upgrade to Lion NO

Upgrading to Lion on your Mac should be fine if you are running Dragon Dictate 2.0, I have personally done this and my Dragon Dictate is working without issue. Updating to Lion if you have MacSpeech Dictate 1.5 Nuance also claims should be fine, I have not tried this.

But, if you are a MacSpeech Scribe customer the advice is to not upgrade to Lion from 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

MacSpeech Scribe is the legacy MacSpeech product now maintained by Nuance which allows voice to text from recorded audio only. Personally I am surprised that with Dragon Dictate 2.5 the ability to transcribe from spoken voice AND recorded voice was not included, I am sure this has to have been high on the Nuance Mac teams priority list for some time but as yet is still not there.

Keep an eye on my blog and the official Nuance Dragon for Mac website for any updates.

Beautiful Lion Tamer picture (without the MacSpeech Scribe box) oil painting by Jennifer Li, click here to see Jennifer’s amazing artwork.

Simply check for updates when you fire up Dragon Dictate and you will be presented with this:

In a press release yesterday Nuance announced and made available a free upgrade for all registered Dragon Dictate 2.0 customer via check for updates. New and of note to most will be the ability to use your iPhone as a wireless remote mic to feed directly into Dragon Dictate (must be connected on the same WiFi network).

You will need the free Dragon Remote Mic app from iTunes, this is the same app which also works as a remote mic into Nuance’s Windows voice recognition offering, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5.

So what is new in Dragon Dictate 2.5

• Microsoft Word 2011 for Mac support.
• Remote mic using your iPhone as just mentioned.
• Easier integration with social media, use voice commands to tweet and update your Facebook status.
• Search engine specific browse commands for Bing, Google and Yahoo
• As well as the usual, faster and more accurate claims.

Click here for a full run down of the new features from the Nuance website.

Yes, 11.5 is now ready for download and upgrade in Australia for all registered Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 users. The upgrade will open up the use of your iPhone as a remote wireless mic into Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows (unless you are a Home user) aswell as some new social tools like tweeting and Facebook updates using Dragon. I am willing to bet 20c that we will see another upgrade soon to include posts to Google+, here’s hoping.

Want to know how to use your iPhone with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5? First you will need to grab the free Dragon Remote Mic app from iTunes here Then watch this official Nuance video … [click here for the video]

##UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST##

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was released worldwide on 20th July, 2011

I have personally upgraded from 10.6 (Snow Leopard) to 10.7 (Lion) 

with Dragon Dictate 2.0.3 installed with no issues.

CLICK HERE for the official status of Mac Dragon products with Lion

Note it says: 

Dragon Dictate 2.5 Customers

Dragon Dictate 2.5 customers may experience irregular software crashes 

when opening or running the software on the new Apple OS X Lion. We are 

currently investigating reports to discover and address the root cause 

of the issue. If you wish to continue using Dragon Dictate most 

effectively, we encourage you to maintain Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

With the launch of OS X version 10.7 better known as Lion about to hit the Apple Mac App Store on 20th July in the US (likely the 21st July in Australia) now the frantic search is on to see what products we already have installed on Snow Leopard (10.6) that will still work when we upgrade. For me and many others the question is shifting to the best voice recognition software for the Mac – Dragon Dictate from Nuance.

So can I upgrade to Lion and still use Dragon Dictate? YES, BUT MAYBE WAIT A LITTLE based on the following:

I have emailed my Australian Nuance contact and was told that there are no incompatibilities that they are aware of. This is a good sign but I am still looking for someone who has managed to install the dev release of Lion and test with Dragon Dictate.

I have emailed the US Nuance Dragon Dictate beta testing co-ordinator and am awaiting a reply.

I have messaged Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Facebook (yes they look after the Mac product also) and was told this:

I have looked on the Nuance Dragon for Mac forum – click here

I have tweeted @DragonTweets and was just given a link to the curent Dragon Dictate specs webpage which showed compatible with Snow Leopard, not the answer I was after people !

I have checked the Mac OS X Lion Application Compatibility chart listed at roaringapps.com and it says “App Has Not Been Tested”

We get alot of hits on our blog from all over the world. Many hits are people searching for answers to specific questions. So we thought we would start a post and update as we go with questions we see pop up from day to day. This post will get longer over time so make good use of your browsers search function (here’s a tip, click Ctrl-f):

Do you have a question you would like answered? Leave a comment and we may include it in the list.

Q: Can you convert a .ds2 file to .dss?

A: Yes you can. But why would you is a question we would ask back. I would understand converting an MP3 or WMA file to a dss file format as the file size would be greatly reduced, but .ds2 to .dss no point.

Q: What is the best mic for use with Dragon Dictate for Mac

A: The answer to this one depends on the kind of microphone you prefer. Dragon Dictate for Mac in Australia is bundled with a choice of several mic options (click here for a run down of them all). These are all excellent mics so it is really down to personal choice. If you like a headset then there are a couple of options, if you prefer just a mic then there is an option for that and if you prefer wireless again there are a couple of choice. Soon I am sure dictation wirelessly through your iPhone/iPad will be available I am sure as this has just been released for Dragon NaturallySpeaking on Windows.

Q: Can I use the Olympus DS-5000 with my Olympus AS-4000 transcription kit.

A: Yes you can. BUT, and there is always a but, not straight out of the box. The AS-4000 kit will only work with standard .dss audio files, out of the box the DS-5000 records in .ds2 or DSS Pro audio format which is not compatible with the AS-4000. With the DSS Player Pro v5 Dictation Module software installed on a Windows PC (it comes with the DS-5000) you can set the default record mode of the DS-5000 to what is called Classic Mode (click here for a video demo how to do this). By setting Classic Mode your DS-5000 will record .dss audio files and will then be compatible with your AS-4000 transcription kit. More info here from an earlier blog post.

Q: Free transcription software for ds2 file.

A: OK, this search term or a variant of it appears every day in my Google analytics and I have to be honest it annoys me. If you are searching for free software to transcribe .ds2 audio files that indicates to me that you are likely doing this as a service to someone, i.e. you are running a business. At some point while running a business you will have to spend some money to support your business activities. After all most transcriptionists have it good, the most popular transcription software (Express Scribe) is free, you can even use it without a foot pedal thus saving you even more money. Now if you are receiving .ds2 files from your clients do them and yourself a favour, buy the software to let you play or convert these audio files. My tip, if you are watching the pennies, buy the Olympus DSS Player Pro v5 Dictation Module software, this will let you convert an Olympus .ds2 into .dss (classic) or WMA (or AIFF if you are on a Mac) and therefore will work with your free transcription software.

Q: Which digital voice recorders are compatible with Dragon Dictate for Mac.

A: This is an easy one to answer, none. Dragon Dictate for Mac can not take audio from a digital voice recorder, unlike its Windows cousin, Dragon NaturallySpeaking which can take audio in the Premium and Pro versions. Currently a seperate product called MacSpeech Scribe will take audio from a recorder and transcribe it using the Dragon speech recognition engine. I expect this to change at some point in the future and be part of Dragon Dictate but as of now it can only be done with MacSpeech Scribe.

Some excitement over the last couple of weeks with rumours abound that Nuance have done a deal with Apple and have signed some kind of agreement to use their voice recognition technology in the up coming iOS5 release for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Since Siri was gobbled up by Apple back in 2010 we have all been waiting to see what Apple will do with the voice controlled concierge and the theory is Dragon will be used to power the new Apple stamped version of Siri when it finally emerges. These are just rumours for now but rumours which are growing in substance.

Moving on to the new release of Dragon NaturallySpeaking annouced out of Nuance HQ in Burlington, Massachusetts mid June 2011, version 11.5, it promises much the same as every Dragon release: faster and more accurate. But this time they have thrown in some Apple iDevice magic via a free iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch app (available now from iTunes), you will be able to use your Apple device as a remote mic to feed Dragon via your WiFi. How cool is that ! Unless you are a Home version user then you are left out in the cold, remote mic only works with Premium, Pro and Legal 11.5

Of course I instantly grabbed the app, magically delivered to all my devices thanks to the new partially released iCloud service, and then reached for my laptop to “Check For Updates” in DNS 11. To my huge dissapointment no updates available, I’m still stuck on version 11. Some closer reading of the press release dampened my excitment a little more as the free upgrade (if you are already on DNS version 11) will be rolled out in a few weeks so read mid July 2011.

Also in the bump to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 you can now get social hands free if you are a twitter user or frantic Facebook updater with voice commands such as:

“Post to Facebook [Dictate Australia is an awesome company who know digital voice for Mac and Windows inside out]”

or

“Post to Twitter [Follow @dictates on twitter, they are the digital voice people in Australia]”

Please feel free to try those exact updates when yoo get your update to version 11.5

So, like the rest of the world we wait patiently for the bump. July is going to test all our bandwidth to the limit with iOS5 coming for iPhone/iPad, OS X Lion for our Macs and 11.5 for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Windows users, please don’t feel left out – the daily patches, bug fixes and security updates for your Windows should make you feel just as updated as the rest of us.

If you are thinking of buying Dragon NaturallySpeaking there is no need to hold back. We, like all resellers in Australia are shipping version 11, as soon as the 11.5 update becomes available it will be an electronic download for all registered version 11 users.

Read the official Nuance press release announcing Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5

Want to watch some official Nuance videos on the updates to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5? Of course you do, just a warning the American accent may induce sleep:

[Video] Post to Facebook or Twitter using voice commands

[Video] Using the Dragon Remote Mic app for iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch

Nuance Australia this week released the Legal vocabulary pack for Australian Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional users. The language pack is available as an add-on, you must have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional already installed, or you can buy the language pack with DNS 11 Pro as a bundle.

The legal pack is designed specifically for Australian legal users and is crammed full of Australian centric legal terms, just over 200 million words Nuance claim which will help legal users achieve optimal accuracy out of the box when dictating legal terms.

As usual with Nuance there are numerous options open to you whether you are new to Dragon or you already have a version of Naturally Speaking installed. Only two options are currently available from the Australian Nuance distributors but a couple more will be coming later this year, including upgrades from earlier versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred and Professional. Here are your options and the pricing for what is available now:

I Already Own Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional

Then all you need is the add-on language pack which self installs itself with your Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Pro.

• Product Name:  Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 11 Legal Commercial Vocab Only
• Product SKU: A509M-K00-11.0
• RRP: $499.95 incl. GST

I Am New To Dragon And Do Not Own Any NaturallySpeaking Software

Then you will need the DNS11 Professional plus DNS11 Legal vocabulary pack.

• Product Name:  Dragon NaturallySpeaking Pro 11 Commercial + DNS Legal 11 Australian Edition
• Product SKU: A509M-G00-11.0
• RRP: $829.95 incl. GST

For those of you running older versions of Dragon Naturally Speaking, be it the Professional or Preferred versions there are upgrades available for you to Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 Professional, which you must have installed before you can install the add-on. Currently you need to purchase the upgrade to DNS 11 Pro and the legal vocab separately.

As always, any questions please drop a comment here or tweet us @dictates

I have a friend who is new to the iPhone, the other day he asked me if I knew of a good app that would convert speech to text on his iPhone so that he could speak an SMS message instead of typing it. He had been looking on the Australian iTunes store and didn’t find anything that grabbed him, I pulled my iPhone and demonstrated flawlessly the power of Dragon and the Nuance Dictation app.

Of course he was impressed, my speech was instantly transcribed and the resulting text ready to be sent as a text message. As we are all a social bunch the text transcribed is not just restricted to being sent in a text message. You can also email, tweet or Facebook text aswell as copy to a clipboard ready to paste into any other application on your touch device. So what is this magic and how does it work.

Voice recognition is good when the conditions are right. You need a good quality mic, tick there for the i devices, especially with the iPhone headset and mic attached and even better when you USB plug a noise cancelling headset and mic in the case of  the iPad using the USB adapter supplied in the Apple camera connection kit. I have a Parrott VXI TalkPro which works very well when plugged into my iPad for the Nuance Dictation app and also for Skype calls.

Next all you need is quiet environment with little or no background noise and you are away. Tap the record button, start your spiel and when done send your audio off into the cloud. The speech to text does not happen on your device, your audio is recorded and sent to Nuance where the server version of Dragon kicks in and transcribes your voice. This is one of the reasons the recording is limited to a maximum of two minutes of audio. All this is done without the need to train, a standard step on the installed stand alone version of Dragon (NaturallySpeaking on Windows and Dragon Dictate on Mac) which allows your computer to get the basics of how you speak.

Unfortunately this awesome app is only available currently from overseas iTunes stores (US, Canada, UK, Germany, France and Italy), lets hope it makes it to Australia in the near future and that they add Australian to the accents supported by the mobile edition. Only five speech profiles are supported which are: US English, UK English, French, German and Italian. If you can’t wait go grab yourself a US iTunes account and pull the app down now, the app is free.

More info and updates from the official Nuance mobileapps website or follow Nuance mobileapps on twitter.

Now that MacSpeech has been consumed by Nuance and their award winning Mac voice recognition software has been transformed into a world class offering, with it comes volume licensing making the software more attractive and available to commercial, government and more importantly academic institutions here in Australia.

If you are looking for a minimum of 5 licences (and a maximum of 2000+) then there is a volume licence package for you. Nuance, most famous for their Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition on Windows, are no stranger to volume licensing and have offered it for some years. They are now throwing this weight behind Dragon Dictate for Mac.

Also available as an option is a support and maintenance agreement to cover your volume licence purchase. This makes sense to add this on if you are planning to deploy Dragon Dictate to multiple users. The good news is that the support, initially, is in Australia. The support offered is email only but knowing that someone in Australia who knows the product inside out is a plus for us all. This means that support requests are dealt with in our time zone, so no waiting overnight for a response. The local Australian support is also backed by the US Nuance support network so if Australian 1st level are unable to resolve any issues it can be quickly passed and dealt with by the 2nd level US team. Without support and maintenance Dragon Dictate is covered by a standard 90 install only support from Nuance.

Unofficially, if you buy Dragon Dictate from a reputable voice dealer, and by that I mean one that has been with the products since its v1.0 launch, one who uses Dragon Dictate and one who knows and uses Macs then you won’t go far wrong. The Mac voice recognition reseller network in Australia is a small and close knit community, we talk to each other and like most things Apple Mac related we genuinely want to help enjoy and improve the technology we know and love.

So how does the Dragon Dictate for Mac volume licensing work?

Pricing for site licences and for support and maintenance is defined based on the number of installs you require and your industry type. There are three industry types under which you will fall, they are:

Government
Academic / Education
Commercial

Their are 5 volume licencing levels to match each industry type, they are:

Level A – 5-49 users
Level B – 50-199 users
Level C – 200-499 users
Level D – 500-1999 users
Level E – 2000+ users

If you would like to know more about pricing for Nuance’s Dragon Dictate for Mac for your business, government agency or academic institute please give us a call (1300 787 092 option 2) and we can give you the pricing.

For reference, the Nuance volume part numbers for Dragon Dictate are as follows:

Government – Volume Site Licence:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TD9-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TE0-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TF1-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TF2-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-T99-2.0

Government – Support & Maintenance:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TV1-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TV2-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TV3-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TV4-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Govt) – S601A-TV5-2.0

Academic / Education – Volume Site Licence:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FD9-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FE0-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FF1-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FF2-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-F99-2.0

Academic / Education – Support & Maintenance:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FV1-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FV2-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FV3-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FV4-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Academic) – S601A-FV5-2.0

Commercial – Volume Site Licence:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-GD9-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-GE0-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-GF1-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-GF2-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-G99-2.0

Commercial – Support & Maintenance:

• Level A – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-TV1-2.0
• Level B – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-TV2-2.0
• Level C – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-TV3-2.0
• Level D – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-TV4-2.0
• Level E – Dragon Dictate 2.0 (Commercial) – S601A-TV5-2.0

Included in the standard boxed product is the Plantronics Audio 610 USB headset and mic. Upgrade options are available to the Plantronics Calisto Bluetooth wireless headset only. Volume site licences for Dragon Dictate are not available with other microphone combinations.

We seem to be blessed here in Australia, we have an excellent distributor for Nuance’s Dragon Dictate who has been into voice recognition on the Mac since day 1. Because of this we have five combinations of Dragon Dictate and microphone to choose from. The bundles and their RRP pricing are:

Nuance Dragon Dictate 2.0

+ Plantronics DSP 610 USB Headset & Mic [B3010-MS] – RRP $249.95 incl. GST

+ MacMice MicFlex Desktop Mic [B3015-MS] – RRP $249.95 incl. GST

+ Parrott VXI USB Headset & Mic [B3020-MS] – RRP $399.95 incl. GST

+ Plantronics Calisto Bluetooth Mic [B3040-MS] RRP $349.95 incl. GST

+ RevoLabs xTag Wireless Mic [B3030-MS] RRP $589.00 incl. GST

The software in each box is exactly the same, the only difference is the microphone. So what is the difference between the mics and which one should you choose?

Plantronics DSP 610 USB Headset & Mic

Plantronics are very well known in the headset/mic world so anything from them is going to be good. The DSP-610, also known as the .Audio 610) is the headset which is included in the “standard” Dragon Dictate package. This is what would be your entry level headset and mic, it is Nuance certified and is very good. The mic is noise cancelling, which is what you need for voice recognition and the mic is on an adjustable boom for easy adjustment. Don’t be put off that this is the cheapest headset, it is still excellent. Click to see the DSP 610 on the Plantronics website.

MacMice FlexMic

A very cool addition to any Mac users desk is the FlexMic. No headset here, just a high quality mic on the end of a flexible boom which can be easily positioned wherever you want it. Perfect for those that do not need a headset.

The Parrott VXI TalkPro

The Parrott VXI noise cancelling mic and headset is a step up from the entry level Plantronics DSP610. It is a physically tougher headset and mic so will withstand the test of time longer than a well used DSP610. This is the headset that I personally use and love it. Click to see the TalkPro VXI on the Parrott website.

Plantronics Calisto Bluetooth Wireless Headset & Mic

A very popular option is this bluetooth headset from Plantronics called the Calisto. Preferred by many as it fits comfortably over your ear and frees your desk from the cables you get with the above headsets. This is not your usual off the shelf Calisto, it comes with a special noise cancelling USB dongle, essential for high quality voice input to the speech recognition software. Please don’t be tempted to import a Calisto or grab one off eBay as the off the shelves do not have the dongle. Click to see the Plantronics Calisto website.

RevoLabs xTag Wireless Mic

This is the creme de la creme of wireless mics, the RevoLabs xTag. As the RevoLabs tag line says, “hear every word” which is exactly what Dragon Dictate will do if you go for this, the most pricey, mic option for your Dragon Dictate. USB chargeable, this little wireless mic is for the serious user with plenty of cash. Click to see the RevoLabs xTag website.

So there you have it, a quick look at the Dragon Dictate mic bundles. Everyone is different and has their own prefences; on the head mics, over the ear mics, standalone mics and wireless mics. I have been using my Parrott VXI happily with no problems for the last couple of years but I do have to admit the cable can be a pain sometimes. If I was to start again I would probably go with the Plantronics Calisto just because of the lack of desk real estate that it takes up.

Remember, all the mics above are not just restricted for use with Dragon Dictate. They can all be used with Skype, iChat and Facetime and the Plantronics Calisto can also be used with your iPhone.

Nuance has quickly forged their authority on the Dictate brand of voice recognition software for Mac and with their first release Dragon Dictate 2.0 they have done an excellent job. But what now for the Legal and Medical edition still stuck at MacSpeech Dictate version 1.5 and the fairly new offshoot product MacSpeech Scribe currently at version 1.1, all of which are using the older Dragon speech recognition engine and not the new one included with Dragon Dictate.

I have some theories for these products which may or may not be correct so please don’t hold me to them. These are my best guesses and have not been confirmed or denied by Nuance, just my two cents worth.

MacSpeech Scribe in my view can go in ne of two directions. It can either be discontinued and the voice to text functionality built into a later Dragon Dictate update, much like Dragon NaturallySpeaking Premium or Professional for Windows. Or Nuance will embrace this as a separate product and continue to push it as a stand alone offering for transcribing only recorded audio. I have always been torn on MacSpeech Scribe, I have never understood why you would create a separate product for transcription of digitally recorded audio but that maybe because I have been so used to the functionality from the Windows side of the fence. As MacSpeech Scribe is still fairly new I have a feeling Nuance will continue with it and we will likely see a Dragon Scribe product appear in the very near future.

So what about the Medical and Legal version of MacSpeech Dictate, are we going to see an equivalent in Dragon Dictate? My personal view is that we are likely to see a Legal version for Dragon Dictate but maybe not the Medical version. From my understanding the Legal dictionary of terms is fairly standard and so can be quite easily built into a speech recognition dictionary. Wheres Medical with its large number of specialised area of understanding would be an unwieldily dictionary to maintain and build. For the Medical side of things I think we will see a third party put their hand up and claim an exclusive partnership with Nuance to provide and support that medical crowd.

So when can we see what I have theorised about above. Dragon Scribe I would think would be very close, if it is coming, and we would likely see this before the end of the year. Dragon Dictate Legal I would also see on the same time line, especially as we now have Dragon Dictate in the wild adding a more comprehensive legal dictionary can’t be that far behind.

Of course as soon as we get wind of any new voice recognition products from Nuance for the Mac or Windows we will post the info.

The cat is finally out of the bag as Nuance, owners of the MacSpeech brand of voice recognition for Intel Mac, announced the latest version of the Dictate family. Dragon Dictate, formerly known as MacSpeech Dictate, is the new name and with it comes more enhancements and features. In this blog post we will look at:

• What’s New In Dragon Dictate 2.0 for Mac
• What Are Your Upgrade Options From MacSpeech Dictate to Dragon Dictate
• Where Can You Buy The Software In Australia

Dictate Australia has been with MacSpeech Dictate since day one, we are big fans and have loved to see this product grow from strength to strength. Now at version 2.0 the influence of Nuance is clear for all to see as the product lines of their famous NaturallySpeaking brand for Windows and Dictate for Mac merge closer and closer together. We have been beta testing the new Dragon Dictate for a few weeks and love the new look and feel, it feels polished.

I have always been honest and up-front with any customer I have spoken to over the years when asked “…just how good is  MacSpeech Dictate?”. I have lauded the accuracy of the Dragon speech recognition engine on the Mac but you could always feel that there was alot of catching up to do with the feature packed and more mature Windows equivalent. Nuance, since their takeover of MacSpeech earlier this year, are acknowledging the importance of the Mac by showing their dedication and support to the Dictate product and with Dragon Dictate 2.0 we now have a world class speech recognition software for the Apple Mac.

So what’s new in 2.0 other than the new name;

• Dragon 11 Engine – The very latest Dragon speech recognition engine used Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 for Windows – very fast and accurate voice recognition
• Proof Reading Added – making full use of the Macs text-to-speech functionality Dragon Dictate will now read back to you your transcripts, helping speed up the proof reading process.
• Mouse Grid – My favourite, makes browsing the web easy by zooming into a point on the screen quickly using a mouse grid.
• Mouse Movement – Easily fly your mouse pointer around the screen using just your voice.
• Mouse Click – Again, using your voice you can click, double click and triple click.
• Multiple Audio Sources – Use more than one mic? No longer a problem you can have multiple audio source now for your trained profile.
• Easier Editing – A range of new commands to help edit documents by voice much easier.

Dragon Dictate is available to buy now from the MacSpeech Australia website and available in four configurations:

• AU$219.95 – Download only, BYO mic.
• AU$219.95 – Boxed product, BYO mic. **
• AU$249.95 – Boxed product with standard headset and mic. **
• AU$349.95 – Boxed product with wireless bluetooth headset and mic. **

** boxed products available October 2010 in Australia, pre orders being taken now.

There is also good news if you currently own MacSpeech Dictate. Dragon Dictate is available as an upgrade from any version of MacSpeech Dictate. Here are the upgrade options in Australia:

Upgrade to Dragon Dictate for Mac if you have MacSpeech Dictate v1.5 and upwards

You have two upgrade options (your v1.5+ software must be registered before you upgrade):

1. You can upgrade the software only via download (be prepared its a big download, between 1Gb – 2Gb) for only AU$69. If you prefer the boxed upgrade that will be available in October. Click here for the Dragon Dictate Australia upgrade site.
2. You can upgrade the software and pickup a new Plantronics Calisto bluetooth headset for wireless dictation for AU$179. This will be a boxed product and available from October onwards. Pre orders are being taken now. Click here for the Dragon Dictate Australia upgrade site.

Your existing MacSpeech Dictate v1.5 profile(s) can also be upgraded, make sure you back them up first before you upgrade.

Upgrade to Dragon Dictate for Mac if you have MacSpeech Dictate v1.0 to v1.3

You will need to email MacSpeech Sales with your serial number and current version and they will give you upgrade instructions.

We are not ones for blowing our own trumpet but this week we are feeling well and truly chuffed with ourselves. Dictate Australia have just become certified Gold Dragon NaturallySpeaking resellers, this gives us bragging rights to call ourselves experts in the leading speech recognition software for the Windows world. Having studied and passed our exams we can proudly display the Nuance Gold Certified reseller logo on our website, blog, e-mail signature and on our T-shirts, in fact I may even get it tattooed on my arm! You can throw at us any Dragon NaturallySpeaking question and we will be able to answer it (and if we can’t, we have the contacts in Nuance Australia who can).

So why do we also call ourselves experts in Mac voice recognition. Well, we have been supporters of MacSpeech Dictate since version 1.0 first appeared a couple of years ago. We have seen this product grow since version 1.0 into the advanced voice recognition product for Mac that it is nowadays. We are also beta testers for MacSpeech, so we are always up to date with what’s new and what is coming in the next version. This is very exciting for us and sometimes a little hard to keep quiet on some of the new features and functions as we see them during testing.

We often hear from people in the Dictate Australia office who say “yes but is voice recognition any good nowadays?”, this commonly comes from people who tried Dragon NaturallySpeaking in the version 6, 7 or 8 days. We too tried voice recognition in the early days and found it hard going. The reason we moved back into voice recognition software was because of MacSpeech Dictate, we could see the advances that have been made and we wanted to give it another try. Now that MacSpeech is owned by Nuance an already excellent product can only get better, and will get better very quickly.

This blog post has been written using MacSpeech Dictate.