Voice Recognition: Encouraging Signs

My wife has struggled on-and-off with severe tendonitis in her hands and arms over the years, and as a result she's been a motivated tester of the various voice recognition programs that occasionally appear at my front door. Most recently she was using IBM's ViaVoice v9 for Windows (now at v10 and sold by ScanSoft) with a fair bit of frustration….which frustrated me, because voice recognition technology has been under development for a long time now and I'd hoped it'd be more mature by this point. Part of the issue was that she was using an Andrea Electronics array microphone with USB adapter; in spite of its Superbeam technology, ambient noise too easily confused ViaVoice's recognition engine, and because the mic couldn't be attached to the top edge of her laptop's thin display, it wasn't portable-usage-friendly. Part of the issue was her underpowered Fujitsu Lifebook-P2110 laptop; an upgrade fixed that. But in spite of the help of the Medical Vocabulary supplement to handle the pharmaceutical lingo she occasionally tossed at it, along with plenty of training, accuracy never got above 80%.

Earlier this month, we put ScanSoft's Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional v8 on her Dell Inspiron 700m, along with an Andrea headset (which, oddly enough, passes microphone traffic to the PC over USB but relies on the PC's headphone jack to pass audio back to the user). She reports that recognition was around 90% out-of-box, and has further improved to high-90-percent after initial training and a few days' worth of limited use. Equally important, she found the Dragon NaturallySpeaking documentation, both print and electronic, far superior to what she struggled with in the ViaVoice days. About the only shortcoming she's encountered is that (at least right now) it struggles with the Spanish words she tosses at it (her family heritage is Cuban). Unlike with the add-in packs that ViaVoice supported, ScanSoft only offers standalone dedicated packages for various languages, as well as for legal and medical editions.

I'm very encouraged by the technology progression that Dragon NaturallySpeaking v8 signifies; PC building-block and system manufacturers are increasingly desperate for MIPS-sucking apps to justify platform upgrades (a situation very evident in the presentations and show floor demos here at the Intel Developer Forum), and highly accurate voice navigation and data entry is equally desireable in small form factor mobile gear (such as cell phones and PDAs) where easy-to-use keyboards aren't feasible. Keep in mind, too, that accurate voice recognition will open the doors to PC use by folks who are intimidated by keyboards and mice, and those who are unable to use these traditional interface methods due to illness and old age. What have your recent experiences been with voice recognition?