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Hardware Reviews

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile
by David Chan-SVCL

Dragon NaturallyMobile is a hand-held digital recorder designed specifically for use with voice recognition software. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile is the complete voice recognition package from Dragon Systems containing the recorder and the Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software.

Voice recognition is one of the latest computer technologies to be widely available to the public. In theory, voice recognition software should be able to transcribe natural speech into text. In practise, major improvements still need to be made to today's voice recognition software before this can be achieved.

Dragon Systems, with the release of its Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile package, has taken a step forward in speech recognition by allowing speech to be recorded in files that can be later automatically converted into text.

The Dragon NaturallyMobile recorder is elegantly designed and fits comfortably into your hand. All the buttons on the recorder can be easy accessed using your thumb. Recording speech is an easy process, you just press record and speak into the in-built microphone, or if you prefer, the optional headset microphone that is provided as part of the package.

Using the voice transcript (VT) mode, 40 minutes of speech can be stored in a standard 4Mb SmartMedia card. There are two other recording speeds available, short play (SP) and long play (LP). Using the LP mode, up to 74 minutes can be stored on a standard card.

The Dragon NaturallyMobile recorder can be plugged into your computer, and by clicking the Transcribe button in the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, your file will be automatically converted into text. The problem with the software is that it still cannot understand normal speech. After reading in a concise and clear voice for about 20 minutes to setup the software to your speech and vocabulary, if you speak too fast or slow, the software cannot handle it.

The recorder is also useless for transcribing interviews or lectures, as the software will only recognise the voice it is setup for. Because of these restrictions, the Dragon NaturallyMobile recorder is really only useful to record dictations. However, the Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile package is still very useful and will certainly set the trend for voice recognition packages to come.