[MV] Re: [PR} MacSpeech announces major step forward in Speech Recognition for Apple's Mac OS X Operating System

[JSenecal at aol.com]

>Can you add a bit of info in regards to correction mode on 1.6?
>
>-  Basically I am very happy with ViaVoice 3.xx, ( Leaving out the usual
>gripes).  Do you now feel that iListen 1.6 (OSX)  can compete with ViaVoice?
>Dare I ask, is it even better in some applications than ViaVoice 3.0?

As someone who recently changed from ViaVoice to iListen, I thought I 
could answer this.

The general design of iListen correction hasn't changed, ViaVoice 
correction is still much easier to use, but can only be used in Speakpad.

But although the general design of iListen correction hasn't changed, 
there have been many improvements.

1) The correction box is no longer always full screen (it's still covers 
a large area though).

2) Correction can be done by voice.

3) Selection of text to be corrected can be done by voice.

4) New words can easily be added, including words that are not pronounced 
the same as they look.

5) Pronunciation of words can be changed for words that you pronounce 
differently than iListen expects (use this with caution!)

These improvements, along with some other enhancements I needed and the 
ability to do  correction in any application,  lead me to switch from 
ViaVoice. Since I wasn't dictating into speakpad, dictation errors were 
far more frustrating with ViaVoice than with iListen. I find that with 
iListen, even stubborn recognition errors are less frustrating, and the 
iListen does eventually learn.

Note that to successfully use correction with iListen, it helps to 
understand the shadow document that it keeps, and the restrictions that 
this imposes. However, code improvements in iListen do make it possible 
to jump around editing a document by voice, you just need to remember to 
do any recognition corrections before you move the cursor manually to do 
editing.

This is not to say that iListen is perfect, but for me, it's currently 
the best voice recognition product available.

Joseph Senecal