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TMO at MWSF - MacSpeech Debuts MacSpeech Dictate

by , 10:20 AM EST, January 16th, 2008

MacSpeech on Wednesday introduced MacSpeech Dictate, which will let users dictate directly into applications without spending much time training the software to recognize their voice. The company, which is demonstrating the new software at this week's Macworld Expo, said that Dictate can achieve a 99 percent accuracy level in less than five minutes of use.

The application also recognizes user-spoken commands separately from dictation, eliminating the need to tell the software to switch modes. Nuance Communications provided the underlying speech recognition and dictation technology.

MacSpeech will ship Dictate by February 15, 2008. Pricing will start at US$199, with a $99 crossgrade from the company's iListen product available. The company noted that iListen will be discontinued; anyone who purchased it during 2008 will be able to crossgrade for $29. Mac OS X v10.4.11 and an Intel processor will be required.

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Close Name:rebbi Posts: 31 Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:32 pm Subject: Awesome news!

Mac users will now have a speech recognition app based upon the same engine as Dragon Naturally Speaking, which is an amazing app. Very cool... shame it's only for Intel-based Macs, though, but what can you do?


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Close Name:Guest
Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:23 pm Subject: Good Luck

I once suggested to this company that iListen would be more relevant to more people if it streamlined it's command creation tools to be more compatible with World of Warcraft, which allows its interface to be controlled by voice commands, and if it offered gamers a stereo headset.

They basically wrote me off as a lunatic and ignored my suggestions.

In the meantime, WoW has gone on to be a HUGE hit, and now iListen (or should I call it idon'tListen) is a dead product.

They are starting over with a product ported from Windows. Here's to hoping they get an open mind about the uses for their new venture and respond with interest to novel ideas.


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