Voice recognition software

[Eric S. Johansson]

bodhi.zazen wrote:
> Via Voice was "bought" by ScanSoft who owns Dragon (although IBM still
> has some rights? I do not understand. IBM has no current plans to
> continue development of Via Voice):

it's quite simple.  ScanSoft is attempting to achieve a monopoly in a 
marketplace where nobody cares except a bunch of cripples (like me).
in reality, they have driven many of the research people out of the 
organization and as a result have no demonstrable ability to expand or 
enhance the product.  If you look at the public bug list, they have bugs 
that have been there for over two releases.

IBM owns the speech recognition engine and some command-and-control 
technology.  This is all you need for basic speech recognition 
applications including IVR ("say yes" interfaces).  they have yielded 
the right to market the desktop product to ScanSoft and therefore have 
no reason to continue the development of ViaVoice


> I have contacted ScanSoft and they have no plans to develop voice
> recognition for Linux.

or Windows apparently.  Basically, if you're handicapped and 
speech-recognition dependent, you are well and truly screwed.  This is 
one of those moments where the open-source speech-recognition initiative 
(ossri.org) could use more than a few million dollars to build a 
replacement for naturally speaking.  And yes, it really would cost close 
to 10 million and a few years effort because it would mean hiring a 
highly knowledgeable scientists with very specialized knowledge to solve 
problem.  in other words, rebuild dragon and then build an engine.  All 
of the existing engines Sphinx family) are good for controlled grammar, 
limited vocabulary dictation not the large vocabulary continuous speech 
recognition stuff we need for the desktop.  Very different engine design.

> I will post my "how to" for Ubuntu ?Later tonight.

I tried one of the instructions but unfortunately, I couldn't display 
any fonts and the graphical displays looks scrunched vertically. 
Additionally, IE didn't work so I suspect something fundamental is wrong.

---eric