walrus@wam.umd.edu (Udo K Schuermann) (05/07/91)
I'm somewhat skeptical of the usefulness and accuracy of current voice recognition technology. I've heard of VoRecOne for the Amiga, but before I rush out to buy one, I'd like to find out more about it. Is VoRecOne more than a toy? If you have a VoRecOne, I'd be VERY interested in talking with you. Responses via email, if possible. Questions follow; press 'n' to skip rest of article... 1. Who makes VoRecOne? Is it still supported? What is the going price? Where can I get one from? 2. How difficult is 'training' the software? How flexible? Once trained for my voice, how difficult is it to train it to another voice? Could multiple configurations be maintained and activated to suit the moment? 3. How accurate is VoRecOne? How does VoRecOne handle errors? Does the software provide some sort of error handling? Are there any specific weaknesses that limit its usefulness? 4. How quick is VoRecOne? Does it take forever to use; would using mouse and keyboard be faster? Does an accellerated Amiga work better, or is the processing done outside the Amiga? 5. Will the software run on an accellerated Amiga? How about a 3000 with KickStart 2.0? What system resources are required? How much CPU time does the software eat? 6. Is there a programmer's interface so that I could get close to the hardware if I so choose? How does VoRecOne interface with the Amiga? 7. Any other comments you'd like to offer? Thank you in advance for any information you have to offer! ._. Udo Schuermann "Does he talk? DOES HE TALK?" -- "Of course I talk. ( ) walrus@wam.umd.edu I'm the Minister for Internal Affairs." -- M.Python
njg2@po.CWRU.Edu (J. Norell Guttman) (05/08/91)
In a previous article, walrus@wam.umd.edu (Udo K Schuermann) says: >I'm somewhat skeptical of the usefulness and accuracy of current voice >recognition technology. I've heard of VoRecOne for the Amiga, but >before I rush out to buy one, I'd like to find out more about it. Is >VoRecOne more than a toy? > >If you have a VoRecOne, I'd be VERY interested in talking with you. > >Responses via email, if possible. > >Questions follow; press 'n' to skip rest of article... > >1. Who makes VoRecOne? Is it still supported? What is the going > price? Where can I get one from? Impulse makes VoRecOne... I think it is still supported even though their big seller right now is Imagined. I do not know what is the price right now but I picked mine up from Dr. Oxide himself for $130 at the AmigaExpo 1 year ago in New York City. Try Go-Amiga or Compu-Save (I forget names so easily). > >2. How difficult is 'training' the software? How flexible? Once > trained for my voice, how difficult is it to train it to another > voice? Could multiple configurations be maintained and activated > to suit the moment This is where VoRecOnes incredible ability and advantages lie. There are comparably price voice recognition for the IBM but it is very very limited. VoRecOne is not limited in practically anyway!!!!! {I do not know English very well}. You can program mouse events, menus, gadgets {Dpaint} etc. It is very much like making a macro .... in fact consider it as a event triggered macro. For example whenever you say "dpaint" it will load up dpaint and select the airbrush and have the load file requester. It is compatible with practically every program that is 1.3 compatible. It is 100% multi-tasking so whatever window you are working in it activates so you can draw by saying "right 30" and it draws a straight line and then you can say "sonix - play" and it will switch to the Sonix screen and play the song. Programming involves knowing basic CLI... you have to say the word 2 to 3 times and it stores it (typically 0.3 K meaning you can have thousands of words it will recognize depending on whether you have a hard drive or not). Not only that but if you lets say you want to go into a word processor you can have it load another library of words it will recognize therefore if I say "play" in WorkBench it will play Sonix but if I say "ProWrite - I can play with her" it will load up Prowrite and type "I can play with her". The VoRecOne program is highly user-friend {blows away Macs if that what you want to hear}. You simply type in lets say "Music" and then say "Music" 2x and then type in the next column "sonix" or any cli event. You can program the mouse to move, but I already went over this... if you want certain things only to be specific to one program and not all you just indent and to a procedure you indent more so lets say I say "sonix" it enters my "sub-program" which is just a series of mouses presses I "recorded" and then I say "Write" and it will enter another sub-program and then I say "Quarter Note" and it will enter another subProgram. I can copy these instructions quite easily and save them. If my brother wants to use it all he does is say the words and then save the voice recognition file(s) under a different name. Therefore my entire family can have their own files which work only when they use it. It should take around 2 minutes for 50 words but once they do that they will never have to say those 50 words again (unless your brother starts deleting their files). > >3. How accurate is VoRecOne? How does VoRecOne handle errors? Does > the software provide some sort of error handling? Are there any > specific weaknesses that limit its usefulness? This seems to be a problem. Unfortunately I am not quite qualified to judge it for accuracy since I have a speech impediment and so does my brother (we both slur our words and mispronounce). VoRecOne however does not fail when it comes to accents or even languages ... my Japanese friends when I was in high school (without any previous Amiga experience) taught the Amiga to be a translator by them saying "Oyasuminasei" the told the amiga with the Say command {I taught them that} "Good Evening" and they were having a whole bunch of fun. It can do any language all someone has to do is make a template which these kids made and have some Israeli say for instance "Shalom", "Slecha", "Me zeh", and the Amiga would translate. However there was a trade-off between accuracy and size of the samples. When you buy VoRecOne you will be very unimpressed with the garage type of operation it appears to have been produced with. The engineers essentially produced a cheap sampler which compares the sample with preproduced patterns. The samples are only .3K on the average for a 1 to 2 syllable word but that means that the samples were taken at a very low rate. In other words if there are two samples that are alike such as "red" and "rod" then it might select the one you did not intend. Another thing because something to do with the frequency of deep voices (its low sampling rate or something has difficulty) it will not really work that much. It is best if you are a girl or prepubescent boy. Also you can not change your voice all the time unless you want to make different voice files so you have the mourning voice which is all horse and the evening voice which sounds quite different. It can even vary after you eat. It can work really well if you know how to control you voice (modulate) and if it is rather high pitch. > >4. How quick is VoRecOne? Does it take forever to use; would using > mouse and keyboard be faster? Does an accellerated Amiga work > better, or is the processing done outside the Amiga? It is quite fast but that depends on how many words it has to select from and compare to. It works pretty well on my unaccelearated Amiga 500 with 1 meg. The box as I said before is just a sampler and all the magic is in the Amiga. I guess it would work better in a A3000 but I do not know. With regard to the keyboard and mouse control it depends... can you talk fast and enancaite clearly. It depends wether you can type like me 60 wpm or finger type. It depends whether you like to like in bed and call up your favorite songs without lifting a finger. If you type scietific documents {that would be a bit difficult I guess) or if your words are less than 5 syllables. It is those a wonderfull tool. Remember in StarTrek the Movie II when Scotty goes to the Mac and starts talking to the mouse until realizing that it does not have voice recognition. Well your Amiga has it NOW... the possibilities are endless. >5. Will the software run on an accellerated Amiga? How about a 3000 > with KickStart 2.0? What system resources are required? How much > CPU time does the software eat? I do not know... >6. Is there a programmer's interface so that I could get close to the > hardware if I so choose? How does VoRecOne interface with the > Amiga? Contact impulse... > >7. Any other comments you'd like to offer? I would recommend if you speak clearly more as a gadget unless you have somewhat of a high voice and willing to put the initial effort it takes. It will surely sell Amigas left and right! Of course first go to some dealer or Expo before buying it to determine if your voice is up to par or VoRecOne is up to par with you. DISCLAIMER: I have never worked with Impulse. My only contact with them was through the purchase of VoRecOne. I will not be held responcible in any way for the above information. Caveat Emptor! I do not know by the way how to write proper disclaimers as you have noticed! >Thank you in advance for any information you have to offer! > > ._. Udo Schuermann "Does he talk? DOES HE TALK?" -- "Of course I talk. > ( ) walrus@wam.umd.edu I'm the Minister for Internal Affairs." -- M.Python > -- ==============|njg2@po.cwru.edu|J.Norell Guttman|ClassCWRU'94|================= Ugh....{RunDMC) "It can only be expressed in silence"- Norell Guttman // {LLCoolJ} My .sig file has been crushed by a 1600 lbs. Case chic!!! \\ // {Ghetto Boys} It will soon be fixed!{Salt'N'Pepper,HeavyD} Only Amiga \X/