Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate

Davoud wrote:
> P.S. (Now using the keyboard) I unintentionally left the microphone on
> while proofreading this in a whisper, and here is what MacSpeech got
> from that whisper: "House received a ticket into one you should and
> phone extension to see it in theaters is at him."

Now that you've discovered how HipCrime works,
maybe we can figure out how to disable it.

--
Wes Groleau

I've noticed lately that the paranoid fear of computers becoming
intelligent and taking over the world has almost entirely disappeared
from the common culture. Near as I can tell, this coincides with
the release of MS-DOS.
-- Larry DeLuca
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

Davoud:
> > P.S. (Now using the keyboard) I unintentionally left the microphone on
> > while proofreading this in a whisper, and here is what MacSpeech got
> > from that whisper: "House received a ticket into one you should and
> > phone extension to see it in theaters is at him."

Wes Groleau:
> Now that you've discovered how HipCrime works,
> maybe we can figure out how to disable it.

I have no idea what that means. I looked up HipCrime on Wikipedia, but
I still have no idea.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

In article <060320082346242033%star@sky.net>, Davoud <star.TakeThisOut@sky.net>
wrote:

> Davoud:
> > > P.S. (Now using the keyboard) I unintentionally left the microphone on
> > > while proofreading this in a whisper, and here is what MacSpeech got
> > > from that whisper: "House received a ticket into one you should and
> > > phone extension to see it in theaters is at him."
>
> Wes Groleau:
> > Now that you've discovered how HipCrime works,
> > maybe we can figure out how to disable it.
>
> I have no idea what that means. I looked up HipCrime on Wikipedia, but
> I still have no idea.

Ignorance is bliss, in this case. Trust me.

--
Note: Please send all responses to the relevant news group. E-mail
sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM filter.

JR
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

On Feb 9, 1:07 am, Jolly Roger <jollyro....TakeThisOut@pobox.com> wrote:
> In article <michelle-02A818.22255208022....TakeThisOut@news.west.cox.net>,
> Michelle Steiner <miche....TakeThisOut@michelle.org> wrote:
>
> > In article
> > <noneof-CBE50E.20042108022....TakeThisOut@earthlink.vsrv-sjc.supernews.net>,
> > Mark Conrad <non....TakeThisOut@urbusiness.invalid> wrote:
>
> > > It may be prudent to wait until the first users of the new software
> > > report their actual experiences, after all the sales hype dies down.
>
> > Of course, the people on this newsgroup who are actually interested in
> > the product probably can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
>
> Really?
>
> I bet a lot of Mac users would love to be able to control their Macs by
> voice alone. I imagine anyone with a relative that is disabled in such a
> way that they might benefit from such a dictation/automation type of
> speech application would be interested as well.
>
> I find myself in in both of these groups. I'm definitely interested.
>
> --
> Note: Please send all responses to the relevant news group. If you
> must contact me through e-mail, let me know when you send email to
> this address so that your email doesn't get eaten by my SPAM filter.
>
> JR

If it really worked; then it'd be great.
But the problem that i have with The Speech Recognition dealie that
came with my MacBook was that it only worked with a few things, and it
Never did go through a Training Phase, which i thought was very
suspicious...???
It just assumed that it would recognize everyones voice and speech
patterns right out of the box...???

This same complaint is also valid for Apple Scripts and Automator...
They would be VERY functional if they could work for what i wanted,
but they always seem to jump over those functions...!!! ( ??? )

Gawd; ihc.
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

On Feb 9, 2:06 pm, william mitchell <mitch....DeleteThis@odetta.local> wrote:
> Jolly Roger <jollyro....DeleteThis@pobox.com> writes:
> > In article <michelle-E821F9.11442609022....DeleteThis@news.west.cox.net>,
> > Michelle Steiner <miche....DeleteThis@michelle.org> wrote:
>
> >> Can this software be used to control the computer? I have the
> >> impression that it is strictly for speech dictation into documents.
>
> > We won't know for sure until it's released, but I sure hopw there's a
> > way.
>
> Beyond dictation, MacSpeech Dictate lets people perform basic
> navigation of their Mac and control it with their voice using
> familiar commands like print, cut, copy, paste, etc.
>
> <http://www.macspeech.com/article_info.php?articles_id=288>, 5th
> paragraph.

Didn't M$ come up with a speech recognition package about a year ago
that you could create whole documents with...???
Was that real, or a crazy scam/trick/godswallop...???
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

In article
<c5c8c07c-80a4-4c2d-a525-639d4780fae5.TakeThisOut@z17g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Chuck Rogers <chuck.rogers.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote:

> Finally, I am sorry if version 1.0 disappointed anyone. We have been
> very up front about what version 1.0 will and will not have to
> everyone, and tried to get the word out via people like David Pogue
> and a variety of other online resources. As I said above, set your
> expectations appropriately.

That's precisely what those of us who have been putting off purchasing
the product until some reviews roll in plan to do: purchase it with
*realistic* expectations. : )

--
Note: Please send all responses to the relevant news group. E-mail
sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM filter.

JR
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

Chuck Rogers:
> Everyone:
>
> I'd like to clear some misconceptions up, if I may.
>
> 1). MacSpeech Dictate is in no way a port of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
> If it were, things like Spelling and Correction would be working. But
> therein lies the problem. Mac OS X and Windows handle text in very
> different ways. To make matters worse, different applications also
> handle text in different ways - some of which are not at all conducive
> for using speech recognition. The only thing that we are using from
> Nuance Communications (the company that owns Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
> is the speech engine itself. Nothing about how that engine interacts
> with the operating system or the user interface for Dragon
> NaturallySpeaking was brought over from Windows. MacSpeech Dictate is
> 100% a Mac product from the ground up.
>
> 2). It is true that version 1.0 does not have a Spelling Mode or
> Correction, partly for the reason mentioned above. We decided it would
> be better to get this amazingly accurate product out sooner rather
> than later, and then provide free updates to include those features as
> we get them working and properly tested.
>
> 3). It is too early to say what recording devices will work with
> MacSpeech Dictate in the future. We have our hands full working on
> Spelling and Correction. But our intent is to embrace as many
> recording devices as possible. We have built MacSpeech Dictate from
> the ground up in such a way that it should not have the limitations
> iListen did in terms of what recording devices can be used with it.
> That having been said, we may encounter other limitations during the
> development process that are unknown to us at this time. So while it
> is our intent to support a wide variety of file formats, sampling
> rates, etc. I can't promise at this early stage that we will be able
> to do so. Nonetheless, what we come up with should be more flexible in
> this area than was iListen.
>
> Finally, I am sorry if version 1.0 disappointed anyone. We have been
> very up front about what version 1.0 will and will not have to
> everyone, and tried to get the word out via people like David Pogue
> and a variety of other online resources. As I said above, set your
> expectations appropriately. The chief focus for 1.0 was to release
> something with the amazing out-of-the-box accuracy that the Dragon
> engine gives us, then add the other features. Over time, we anticipate
> a line of dictation products that will not only meet every expectation
> of anyone who has used Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a PC, but also meet
> the expectations of Mac users in terms of well-designed user interface
> and ease-of-use.
>
> Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
> MacSpeech, Inc.

I apologize for having said that Dictate is a port of DNS. The moment I
posted and read my post I knew that that wasn't right; I was aware that
MacSpeech had only licensed Nuance's speech engine.

Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
writers' tools ought to save some time and money.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

In article <070320081222577558%star@sky.net>, Davoud <star RemoveThis @sky.net>
wrote:

> I apologize for having said that Dictate is a port of DNS. The moment I
> posted and read my post I knew that that wasn't right; I was aware that
> MacSpeech had only licensed Nuance's speech engine.
>
> Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
> there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
> trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
> for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
> MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
> Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
> writers' tools ought to save some time and money.
>
> Davoud




Davoud, I would like to throw my 3 cents worth in also.

We know that MacSpeech is a small company that sells a
specialized line of speech products.

A wrong management decision could easily put them out
of business. Frankly, I am amazed that they managed to
stay in business all these years, given <ahem> the
performance of their earlier software.

That said, I am certain that their loyal Mac customers
will cut them a lot of slack. Heck, I bought iListen
over the years, even though I knew ahead of time that
it was not the greatest software in the world.

I would buy it, try it out, then revert to using Dragon
for serious work - - - but the point is I wanted to support
MacSpeech in their efforts to bring great speech technology
to the Mac platform.


Lately, MacSpeech is making all the right decisions, in my
modest opinion. Right now they have good cash flow, and the
prospect of continuing that good cash flow, once the "new" has
worn off of MacSpeech Dictate.

How successful the are in maintaining their 'momentum' depends
on how happy they can keep their customers, which they know.

Keeping their customers happy _while_ retaining a good
cash flow is a delicate balancing act, which they also know.



All that said, now let's get down to the nitty-gritty and
discuss features.


> I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> in only one text editor -- its own note pad.

I second that desire, Davoud. It is much more important
to me that MacSpeech should concentrate on correction
features, rather than fritter away there efforts on trying
to get 'Dictate' to support every application on the Mac.

MacSpeech already knows, I think, that the really big cash
returns on their speech software come from the people who
use the dictation/correction features, rather than from
the people who use the convenience features, such as
supporting every damn application on the Mac.

(12 billion dollars annually taken in
by transcription services in the USA)

Clipping and pasting text to _any_ Mac app' is a quick
and trivial task.

(supporting form entries being the exception,
that is _not_ a trivial feature to implement)




Gaining overall speed through excellent correction features
is _not_ a trivial task.

That requires much time, effort, and development cost, not to
mention listening carefully to one's customers to learn what
is slowing them down in correcting their raw text.




It would be nice of course, if MacSpeech could be all things
to all people, and keep _all_ types of the Mac customers
happy:

1) The "dictation/overall-speed" bunch.

2) The "I want it to support my 200 Mac apps" bunch.

3) The "I want to use speech recognition
to fill out all my paperwork forms" bunch.

Site below gives some insight to the last bunch.

<http://skylinefamilypractice.net/EMR/SpeechRecognitionForFamilyMedicine.
htm>



I would not want to be in MacSpeech management, trying to
juggle all these conflicting issues.


Back to my 3 cents worth. I have spent many thousands
of dollars over the years to support my dictation 'habit'.

Dragon is getting greedy, they recently jacked up the price
of their Dragon medical version to $1,200 - a $200 increase.

....without doing a damn thing to improve it.

I would leap at the chance to throw some of my money to
MacSpeech, if for no other reason than to foster competition.


In any event, good luck MacSpeech with your new product,
however you decide to improve it in future versions.

Mark-
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

On Mar 7, 11:22 am, Davoud <s....RemoveThis@sky.net> wrote:
> Chuck Rogers:
>
>
>
> > Everyone:
>
> > I'd like to clear some misconceptions up, if I may.
>
> > 1).MacSpeech Dictateis in no way a port of Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
> > If it were, things like Spelling and Correction would be working. But
> > therein lies the problem. Mac OS X and Windows handle text in very
> > different ways. To make matters worse, different applications also
> > handle text in different ways - some of which are not at all conducive
> > for using speech recognition. The only thing that we are using from
> > Nuance Communications (the company that owns Dragon NaturallySpeaking)
> > is the speech engine itself. Nothing about how that engine interacts
> > with the operating system or the user interface for Dragon
> > NaturallySpeaking was brought over from Windows.MacSpeech Dictateis
> > 100% a Mac product from the ground up.
>
> > 2). It is true that version 1.0 does not have a Spelling Mode or
> > Correction, partly for the reason mentioned above. We decided it would
> > be better to get this amazingly accurate product out sooner rather
> > than later, and then provide free updates to include those features as
> > we get them working and properly tested.
>
> > 3). It is too early to say what recording devices will work with
> >MacSpeech Dictatein the future. We have our hands full working on
> > Spelling and Correction. But our intent is to embrace as many
> > recording devices as possible. We have builtMacSpeech Dictatefrom
> > the ground up in such a way that it should not have the limitations
> > iListen did in terms of what recording devices can be used with it.
> > That having been said, we may encounter other limitations during the
> > development process that are unknown to us at this time. So while it
> > is our intent to support a wide variety of file formats, sampling
> > rates, etc. I can't promise at this early stage that we will be able
> > to do so. Nonetheless, what we come up with should be more flexible in
> > this area than was iListen.
>
> > Finally, I am sorry if version 1.0 disappointed anyone. We have been
> > very up front about what version 1.0 will and will not have to
> > everyone, and tried to get the word out via people like David Pogue
> > and a variety of other online resources. As I said above, set your
> > expectations appropriately. The chief focus for 1.0 was to release
> > something with the amazing out-of-the-box accuracy that the Dragon
> > engine gives us, then add the other features. Over time, we anticipate
> > a line of dictation products that will not only meet every expectation
> > of anyone who has used Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a PC, but also meet
> > the expectations of Mac users in terms of well-designed user interface
> > and ease-of-use.
>
> > Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
> > MacSpeech, Inc.
>
> I apologize for having said that Dictate is a port of DNS. The moment I
> posted and read my post I knew that that wasn't right; I was aware that
> MacSpeech had only licensed Nuance's speech engine.
>
> Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
> there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
> trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
> for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
> MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
> Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
> writers' tools ought to save some time and money.
>
> Davoud
>
> --
> usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

Just as an FYI, MacSpeech Dictate does have its own Note Pad. While we
will certainly maintain the ability to dictate into any application,
we will also spend quite a bit of effort in making dictation into the
built-in Note Pad a stellar experience. In version 1.0 it is more or
less just a reliable place to dictate some text without having to
worry about any particular program's quirkiness. But over time it will
improve with features targeted at the serious speech recognition user.

Chuck Rogers Chief Evangelist
MacSpeech, Inc.
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

Davoud:
> > Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> > in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
> > there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
> > trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
> > for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
> > MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
> > Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
> > writers' tools ought to save some time and money.

Chuck Rogers:
> Just as an FYI, MacSpeech Dictate does have its own Note Pad. While we
> will certainly maintain the ability to dictate into any application,
> we will also spend quite a bit of effort in making dictation into the
> built-in Note Pad a stellar experience. In version 1.0 it is more or
> less just a reliable place to dictate some text without having to
> worry about any particular program's quirkiness. But over time it will
> improve with features targeted at the serious speech recognition user.

Yes, I know. That's what I have been dictating into, and that's the way
I dictate in DNS. I'm probably a minority of one, because I don't care
if Dictate can _ever_ work with other programs; copying and pasting
from the Note Pad is fine with me.

By the way, after an initial phenomenal success -- very good accuracy
with a variety of texts after I went through the three training stories
-- Dictate seems to have gone haywire on me. Same setup, same location,
same microphone. I first noticed it when I turned the mic off for a
minute or so to call my wife over to have a look at how great Dictate
is. I turned it back on and the program wouldn't convert speech. The
"Sound" System Preference showed that sound was getting into the Mac. I
quit Dictate and restarted and it worked fine, but accuracy began to
decline. Today I read short excerpts from a couple of newspaper
articles and accuracy was perhaps 5 percent, which is to say
practically zilch with a few correct words thrown in. I quit the
program and launched DNS via VMWare Fusion/Boot Camp, working from the
same location with the same text and with exactly the same mic and all,
and accuracy was normal, which is to say, nearly perfect.

I haven't investigated whether it is possible to delete my training and
start afresh, but I imagine it is (or perhaps I'll just re-train as a
new user) so that I can try to document the problem more specifically.

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

In article <070320082253075220%star@sky.net>, Davoud <star.TakeThisOut@sky.net>
wrote:

> By the way, after an initial phenomenal success -- very good accuracy
> with a variety of texts after I went through the three training stories
> -- Dictate seems to have gone haywire on me. Same setup, same location,
> same microphone. I first noticed it when I turned the mic off for a
> minute or so to call my wife over to have a look at how great Dictate
> is. I turned it back on and the program wouldn't convert speech. The
> "Sound" System Preference showed that sound was getting into the Mac. I
> quit Dictate and restarted and it worked fine, but accuracy began to
> decline. Today I read short excerpts from a couple of newspaper
> articles and accuracy was perhaps 5 percent, which is to say
> practically zilch with a few correct words thrown in.

Please let us know what you find out from your
troubleshooting efforts.

Mark-
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

On Mar 7, 9:53 pm, Davoud <s... RemoveThis @sky.net> wrote:
> Davoud:
>
> > > Speaking for myself, I would be quite happy if Dictate could put text
> > > in only one text editor -- its own note pad. Copying and pasting from
> > > there to some final destination--Scrivener, Word, whatever, would be a
> > > trivial task. I use DNS in this way because it is the most convenient
> > > for me. If MacSpeech hasn't already done so, it might be worth
> > > MacSpeech's time to find out what other users think about this.
> > > Eliminating the need to make Dictate compatible with a myriad of other
> > > writers' tools ought to save some time and money.
>
> Chuck Rogers:
>
> > Just as an FYI,MacSpeech Dictatedoes have its own Note Pad. While we
> > will certainly maintain the ability to dictate into any application,
> > we will also spend quite a bit of effort in making dictation into the
> > built-in Note Pad a stellar experience. In version 1.0 it is more or
> > less just a reliable place to dictate some text without having to
> > worry about any particular program's quirkiness. But over time it will
> > improve with features targeted at the serious speech recognition user.
>
> Yes, I know. That's what I have been dictating into, and that's the way
> I dictate in DNS. I'm probably a minority of one, because I don't care
> if Dictate can _ever_ work with other programs; copying and pasting
> from the Note Pad is fine with me.
>
> By the way, after an initial phenomenal success -- very good accuracy
> with a variety of texts after I went through the three training stories
> -- Dictate seems to have gone haywire on me. Same setup, same location,
> same microphone. I first noticed it when I turned the mic off for a
> minute or so to call my wife over to have a look at how great Dictate
> is. I turned it back on and the program wouldn't convert speech. The
> "Sound" System Preference showed that sound was getting into the Mac. I
> quit Dictate and restarted and it worked fine, but accuracy began to
> decline. Today I read short excerpts from a couple of newspaper
> articles and accuracy was perhaps 5 percent, which is to say
> practically zilch with a few correct words thrown in. I quit the
> program and launched DNS via VMWare Fusion/Boot Camp, working from the
> same location with the same text and with exactly the same mic and all,
> and accuracy was normal, which is to say, nearly perfect.
>
> I haven't investigated whether it is possible to delete my training and
> start afresh, but I imagine it is (or perhaps I'll just re-train as a
> new user) so that I can try to document the problem more specifically.
>
> Davoud
>
> --
> usenet *at* davidillig dawt com

Davoud:

Try performing Microphone Setup again (you can find it in the "Tools"
menu). If that doesn't work, please contact our tech support team
through our support web site: http://www.macspeech.com/support_center

Chuck Rogers, Chief Evangelist
MacSpeech, Inc.
 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate 

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 >> Stay informed about: Sour Grapes on MacWorld forum about MacSpeech Dictate