<< | >> Wireless Speech Recognition <<

One of our readers has posted some very germane comments.

The first segment says:
"I don't know about all the areas your are talking about, but I do know that at least in my little corner of the world, the medical community either records notes and has those notes transcripted by a human using one of those little pedals, or if they are using speech recognition, have mandatory human review for inaccurate translations."

We're Microsoft fans, of course; but as of yet, Microsoft hasn't published any vocabularies. However, Nuance has released Dragon NaturallySpeaking Medical 9, with 14 medical specialty vocabularies covering 60 subspecialties which is receiving glowing testimonials in speech recognition newsgroups. Nuance says that with training, accuracy at 99% is achievable, and there's good evidence to support that claim.

As to whether or not physicians should investigate if speech recognition can now be trusted, here is a very, very interesting article from the Speech recognition blog, that specializes in covering speech recognition in the Healthcare industries. The short answer: Yes; and an overwhelming "Yes" !

Many users of speech recognition don't know and aren't told that accuracy is very closely related to the input mechanism (hopefully a wireless headset!) that's used to give the recognizer speech data. It is mission-critical, actually.

All the training in the world can't overcome an inherently bad voice signal. Remember the age old euphamism, "Garbage In, Garbage Out"..?
That holds especially true, for speech recognition. In the old days, we can remember when speech recognition software shipped complete with a $4.00 (retail) headset - and the software makers just couldn't figure out why their sales stayed minimal.

{** If anyone reading our blog wishes to find a pre-tested, pre-qualified headset or other microphone type for the best possible input performance, please consider contacting eMicrophones.com - the best and most trusted web vendor for speech recognition quality hardware.}

Our reader's comment's 2nd segment reads:
"And while the technology may be advancing quickly, for the common person, they don't seem to use it for much, and if they do use it, say on a cell phone or call center, it's hardly flowing speech recognition and is often a pain or at best, more timely.

How right you are!
An excellent piece about what really goes on with "voice over cell phone" can be found here in a post by a_chameleon, one of the Team members.

As to call center IVR performance, before we comment to that we've sent emails to Terry Gold and Marshall Harrison who are without doubt the leading experts on Microsoft Speech Servers and related IVR matters.

Our reader's 3rd comment segment reads:
"Maybe the reason it's considered as a flop by some is because the hollywood aspect of speech recognition. We expect it to do the things we see in star trek. Those are unrealistic expectations, of course, but they do exist. And the speech recognition industry doesn't necessarily abstain from playing on that hype when seeking funding, seed capital, advertising revenue, etc..... :)

Our best answer to that is - Everyone who uses desktop speech recognition should waste no time migrating, to the awesome speech recognition built into Microsoft Windows Vista™. Once anyone's watched Rob Chambers interview with Dr. Crounse video.. there shouldn't be any question - the "Star Trek" and "Hollywood" quality speech recognition we've anticipated for years.. is definitely here now!

Check back tomorrow for more!