Viavoice using built-in microphone

[Martin Markoe]

Martin,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
began speaking directly into the built-in microphone of my G4 Powerbook.
Speaking from 12 to 15 inches from the microphone in an area that is only
moderately quiet (various machinery noises, fans, and distant conversations)
I was surprised to find recognition accuracy not much worse
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Personally, "not much worse" accuracy is OK for some quick E-mail but not
for important documents. I've used the built in microphone on my IBM
Transnote computer with moderate success. As you found out, the trick is to
keep a fairly consistent distance and have little interfering background
noise. Also, you should perform an Audio Setup to acclimatize the microphone
for the environment.

A friend of mine, a retired engineer, thought the reason the microphone
worked on the Transnote but not on many other notebooks was because the
microphone was not up on the frame of the screen. When up at the screen, the
built in microphones we tried seemed to fare worse. This is probably due to
reflections of sound off the screen. Where is the microphone located on the
Powerbook?

Martin Markoe, eMicrophones, Inc.
The best microphones for Speech Recognition
See us at: http://www.eMicrophones.com
See, "Key Steps to High Speech Recognition Accuracy for the Mac" at:
http://www.emicrophones.com/docDetails.asp?DocumentID=39