danielg@med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) (03/30/91)
Today I received a catalog called MacAvenue, which seems to be the Mac offshoot of CompuAdd, the pc clone mail order company. In it, they have an add for a voice activated computer board from Articulate Systems. It's called the Voice Navigator II. Here's the text: You didn't think it could happen, but here it is: the Voice Navigator II from Articulate Systems. Now your computer can really (;^) respond to your voice. And we're not talking about simple one-two-three. Voice Navigator II recognizes voice commands in any application. Whether selecting graphics tools, responding to dialog boxes, your personalized macros, or entering information in a database, the Mac now qualifies as man's best friend. Open the pod bay doors, Hal... The picture is a little strange, looks like s Sony Discman in size. Has two 25 pin connectors (female) on back plus a small microphone plugged into it. The Microphone sits on a stand is about 12 inches high. I'm not up on voice activation, but does anyone know what the scoop is these days? This sounds great. Just think of the database applications. Data entry by voice (it might take longer to error check than to just type it in). Curious, dan -- <>< "Surrender the hunger to say you must know, | <>< Have the courage to say I believe, ==+== <>< For the power of paradox opens your eyes, | <>< And blinds those who say they can see." -- Michael Card |
ds4a@dalton.acc.Virginia.EDU (Dale Southard) (03/30/91)
I saw a demo of the product on TV about a month ago. Seemed to work pretty well. It recognized things like "open" "close" "all" "sellect" and the file names. I don't know how much time it would really save (the guy using it was s p e a k i n g v e r y s l o w l y). But it would seem to have more than a few applications ... anybody got one? --> --> Dale UVa (ds4a@virginia.edu)
minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) (03/30/91)
In article <3151@beguine.UUCP> danielg@med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) writes: >Today I received a catalog called MacAvenue, which seems to be the Mac >offshoot of CompuAdd, the pc clone mail order company. In it, they have >an add for a voice activated computer board from Articulate Systems. >It's called the Voice Navigator II. Here's the text: I got one. (Got is the right word. I didn't buy it myself. I admired it so much at a MacWorld show that they sent me one a couple of months later.) It's great. What it does is, you teach it to recognize menu-words. (Say each word 3 times.) Then you can select from your menus, in hierarchical fashion, by saying the words. It is reliable enough to actually use, at least for my voice. (Not too good on distinguishing "file" from "five".) Also a lot of facilities for doing other things. If you have trouble with a word, you can make a synonym, but I have trouble remembering too many of those. They said they plan in a later release to make it easy to put the synonyms into the menus. I think it's a win. Didn't expect to see usable speech recognizer for a couple more years, at least, in this sort of price range. But don't expect to use it for text entry. The menu selection restriction is probably why it works so well.
gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Gourdol Arnaud) (03/30/91)
I got a Voice Navigator II and it's a pretty good product. It works the following way: For each application you define a set of macros with a name. The macro editor is very powerfull, and the macros are editable. There are no, however, tests or loops. You then learn VoiceNave the sound it should responds for each macro name. Say you define an "Open" macro that selects the Open commands from the file menu. You then go in training mode and say in the mike "Open" (or whatever you want by the way, like "Ouvrir" or "Abrir"). You repeat three times. After, when you say "Open" in the mike, VoiceNav does the macro. Simple. So you can't have connected-words recognition (that is speak whole sentences like in the Knowledge Navigator video). It also only recognize your voice, altough it may partially recognize others voice if of the same sex. And, as usual :"I am in no way affiliated with Articulate Systems, Inc and I only give here my testimony as a satisfied buyer". Arnaud. -- /======================//==========================================/ / Arnaud Gourdol. // On the Netland: Gourdol@imag.fr / / // Via AppleLink: Gourdol@imag.fr@INTERNET# / /======================//==========================================/
rcook@eagle.wesleyan.edu (03/31/91)
In article <3151@beguine.UUCP>, danielg@med.unc.edu (Daniel Gene Sinclair) writes: > > . . . It's called the Voice Navigator II > About two weeks ago I visited a dealer and made a few calls to Articulate Systems (the company that makes the VNII) and got a few brochures in the mail. First of all, it costs about $600. It is an SCSI device with an 8-bit A-D converter and a DSP chip (I forget the kind of DSP) running at 16 MHz or so. I think it requires 2 megs of RAM, but I'm not sure. The brochures are elsewhere. Since the DSP does all the work, very little load (if any) is put on the Mac processor, and also because of this, it makes no use of the built in microphones on the IIsi and LC while providing all their functionality. You train it to recognize your certain sounds, not necessarily words. In other words, you can teach it to recognize when you say 'cut' but it won't recognize when your mother says 'cut' unless she has exactly the same voice as you or you teach it to recognize your mother's 'cut'. There didn't seem to be any limit on how many sounds it could recognize, so you could conceivably have it recognize the 200 or so words you use most often and then spell out the less common words. Apparently it is connected to the system the same way MacroMaker is. Instead of being activated by certain keystrokes or menu clicks it is activated by the sounds you make. It seems to be essentially a front-end for MacroMaker, if you will. Of course, it doesn't require MacroMaker, but it works the same way, using sound to generate fake keystrokes or mouse action. In addition, like MacroMaker, you can have certain sounds associated with only certain programs. What would make the product even more attractive would be if it had some sort of command language, whereby you could dictate actions not expressible as simple macros. Imagine it being able to interpret this: "go to the finder. copy the correspondence folder to the internal drive and eject the disk. go to Word 4. replace attractive with amazing. change font to palatino. change font to times. save. print on laserwriter. quit. shut down." This might be a little complicated, and would probably require recognition of text on the screen, but would be excruciatingly cool. Perhaps a first step should be vocal operation of controls like buttons, scroll bars, check boxes, and menus. So, from what I have gathered, the Voice Navigator II is not a SpeakWrite, nor is it a general speech recognizer like the one Kurzweil makes, but it does appear to be a solid product. And considering the technology required to recognize even simple sounds, $600 does not seem unreasonable--it is much more than a MacRecorder. By the way, my only connection to Articulate Systems is that I know their phone number and they know my address, though they have probably forgotten that by now... ------------------------ Randall Cook rcook@eagle.wesleyan.edu ------------------------
dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz) (04/09/91)
Hi! I'm a software engineer at Articulate Systems, so I am more than happy to fill you in on this wonderful product :-) Disclaimer: Articulate pays my salary and controls my life. I work on the Voice Navigator development team. So take everything I say with that in mind... In article <1991Mar30.132344.41036@eagle.wesleyan.edu> rcook@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes: >> . . . It's called the Voice Navigator II >> > >You train it to recognize your certain sounds, not necessarily words. In other >words, you can teach it to recognize when you say 'cut' but it won't recognize >when your mother says 'cut' unless she has exactly the same voice as you oryou >teach it to recognize your mother's 'cut'. There didn't seem to be any limit >on how many sounds it could recognize, so you could conceivably have it >recognize the 200 or so words you use most often and then spell out the less >common words. > Better than that - it allows you to create hierarchically structured languages with 200 words on *each level* so with proper structuring, there is no limit to the number of words you can train and have recognized. What do I mean by this? Lets say you have a language with commands that you find in a menu bar: Apple File Edit View Special etc... then on the next level you have commands that you find _in_ the menus: New Open Save Print etc... so this allows you greatly expanded voice recognition and better accuracy. The VN also allows you to have different people train different voice files, so your mom can have her own voice file. This means you can easily set it up to recognize either you or your mom, and switch between the two at will. >Apparently it is connected to the system the same way MacroMaker is. Instead >of being activated by certain keystrokes or menu clicks it is activated by the >sounds you make. It seems to be essentially a front-end for MacroMaker, if you >will. Of course, it doesn't require MacroMaker, but it works the same way, >using sound to generate fake keystrokes or mouse action. In addition, like >MacroMaker, you can have certain sounds associated with only certain programs. > >What would make the product even more attractive would be if it had some sort >of command language, whereby you could dictate actions not expressible as >simple macros. Imagine it being able to interpret this: "go to the finder. >copy the correspondence folder to the internal drive and eject the disk. go to >Word 4. replace attractive with amazing. change font to palatino. change font >to times. save. print on laserwriter. quit. shut down." This might be a little >complicated, and would probably require recognition of text on the screen, but >would be excruciatingly cool. Thanks :-) We can do most of what you ask, right now. The Voice Navigator system comes with a fairly complete set of scripting commands which allow you to control most aspects of the Macintosh interface. You can do things like copy folders, eject disks, start word processors, replace text, change fonts, print, quit, and shut down. A lot of this can be done with the prepackaged languages we provide with each VN, but you'll have to create custom macros on your own (there is a program called Language Maker included which helps you do this.) Future releases of Voice Navigator software will offer much greater functionality. System 7 will provide spiffy new ways of communicating with applications, and we'll be able to exploit that fully. But we can do everything you asked for, right now. > >So, from what I have gathered, the Voice Navigator II is not a SpeakWrite, nor >is it a general speech recognizer like the one Kurzweil makes, but it does >appear to be a solid product. And considering the technology required to >recognize even simple sounds, $600 does not seem unreasonable--it is much more >than a MacRecorder. > >------------------------ >Randall Cook >rcook@eagle.wesleyan.edu >------------------------ ------------------------ You bet. By the way, we do provide all the functionality of products like the MacRecorder, built right in to the Voice Navigator. That is, you can do good quality sound input (audio digitizing up to 22khz) through the Navigator. But The VN is much more than that. And getter better all the time! If you have any input about future products, or how we can improve or present products, I'd love to hear from you. My email address is dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu or you can call me at ASI, (617) 876-5236. _Dan Schwarz Software Engineer, Articulate Systems -- | And the men who hold | Dan Schwarz, MB 2926 Brandeis U. | RECYCLE YOUR JUNK| | high places/ Must be | I'NET dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | PEACE IN THE GULF| | the ones to start/ |----------------------------------| tradetapes?mailme| | To mould a new reality/ Closer to the heart ... | FloydRushDead,etc|