Voice Recognition Coming To Apple's OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

Announced this week at the Apple WWDC 2012 conference in San Francisco, California - Dictation to be built into the next iteration of OS X - Mountain Lion 10.8.

To start with the Dictation feature will be limited to speech recognition only in places that you can type.  Talk your tweets, chat your Facebook status and read aloud your emails.

I am willing to bet at least a $1 that we will see Apple build on this and introduce more voice controlled functionality to the Mac, like app launching, email sending and web browsing. Competition to Naunce's Dragon Dictate or a joining of forces?

Siri introduced the world to the concept of using voice to talk to our devices and have them understand us. Dictation will take that one step further. You can be sure the people at Nuance have got themselves are rather large corner office at One Infinite Loop, Cupertino !

For more thoughts on Dictation in Mountain Lion head to our main blog ..

Voice Detect Feature In The Olympus WS-812 / WS-813

When Olympus released their new range of WS series digital voice recorders early in 2012, perfect for interviews and meetings, they added three new features to the WS-812 and WS-813 digital voice/meeting/interview recorders (not on the WS-811). Those three new features are:

• Voice Detect
• Voice Balancer
• Voice Changer

In our latest post on our main blog we have a closer look at the Voice Detect feature. A feature with alot of promise although in its current evolution may not be as useful as it potentially could be.

Voice Detect when applied to a recorded audio file, like and interview, will remove white space or areas of recorded audio with no voice, thus condensing the audio so that on playback the spoken word will flow. This is a handy feature if you listen back to your audio on the recorder and take notes from your interview or meeting.

Why I say not as potentially useful as it could be is that audio processed with Voice Detect can not be exported in that state from the recorder. When you pull a voice detected audio file from the Olympus WS-812 or WS-813 across to your Mac or PC the audio reverts back to its original state - white space remains. If Olympus can find a way in future releases or in future firmware to allow export of Voice Detected audio we would see alot of very happy audio transcription  typists.

For now though, this feature will still be handy for some. To listen to a sample of audio with and without voice detect recorded on an Olympus WS-812 head over to our main blog - click here.

Olympus DSS Player Pro R5 for Windows - Update Available to R5.0.13

Olympus have released an update to their widely used DSS Player Pro R5 software, both the dictation and transcription module. The release takes R5 to version R5.0.13 and includes updates to make R5 compatible with the new Pro digital dictaphones the Olympus DS-7000 and DS-3500.

The update ensures that these devices are recognised and can sync with R5 dictation module although changes to the recorder settings (DS-7000/DS-3500) are not possible using DSS Player Pro R5.

Also updated is the ability in R5 dictation and transcription module to encrypt/decrypt audio files in 256bit. Prior to this release only 128bit encryption/decryption was possible.

Click here for the complete release notes for DSS Player Pro R5.0.13 on our main blog

[Mac] Olympus DSS Player Plus Upgrade To v7.3.0 Available

Ready for download is a small update to the Mac version of DSS Player from Olympus. In this release, taking DSS Player Plus from v7.2.8 to v7.3.0, Olympus have included compatibility with the new range of professional dictation dictation voice recorders - Olympus DS-7000/DS-3500/DS-2500.

Also, after a very long wait is compatibility with the DirectRec II range of hand held USB dictation microphones which allow direct record dictation to your Mac.

For the full detail of the release and for the download link click here for our main blog site

Compare Olympus DS-7000 vs DS-5000

It has been a few weeks now since Olympus announced the release of their new flagship digital dictaphone the Olympus DS-7000. This week officially marked the end of the Olympus DS-5000 in Australia as resellers and Olympus themselves run out of DS-5000 stock.

So what are the key differences between the Olympus DS-7000 and the Olympus DS-5000? Well surprisingly not that many - which is a good thing by the way.

Small tweaks have been made here and there along with improvements in the microphone, interface with Dragon NaturallySpeaking and better rechargeable batteries. That along with a swanky more modern look  and an update to the Dictation Module software from DSS Player Pro R5 to ODMS R6.

Head over to our blog to see in detail the exact differences between the Olympus DS-7000 and DS-5000 digital dictaphones.

Olympus Australia Leads The Worldwide Announcement - New DS-7000 Pro Digital Dictaphone

On a grey, wet Sydney day a small group of Olympus Australia's Pro audio dealers gathered in a harbourside restaurant to listen to an announcement from the Olympus Imaging MD. The secrecy surrounding the launch can only be compared to an Apple announcement, no matter how much probing of the Olympus Sydney team none would spill the beans, even a few minutes before the event.

I personally had done some Googling a few days before to try and get a hint of what was coming. I thought the DS-5000 may be replaced so had been looking, logically, for any DS-6000 rumours - none. Olympus threw me off the scent by going DS-7000.

So announced today is the new flagship pro digital dictaphone the DS-7000 alongside two other new recorders in the Pro dictation range the DS-3500 and DS-2500. All three will replace the current product line which consists of the DS-5000/DS-3400/DS-2400.

Also announced today a new professional digital transcription kit known as the AS-7000. Here we seen an all new kit: new transcription software going from DSS Player Pro R5 to release 6 now called ODMS (Olympus Dictation Management System); new four pedal transcription foot switch called the RS31; new under-the-chin transcription headset called the E62.

With a slightly redesigned shell, improved microphone and big colour TFT display (borrowed from the LS series) Olympus continue to stride forward as the leaders in digital dictation both on the Windows and the Mac platform.

To download todays Olympus Australia press releases and the new Olympus Dictation Product Brochure head to our main blog site (click the title above).

Olympus DSS Player R5 Pro - Free Download

The DSS Player R5 Pro software from Olympus is the key component software that accompanies the professional digital dictaphones (DS-3400 & DS-5000) in the form of the dictation module and comes with the professional transcription kits (AS-5000) known as the transcription module.

Often people require an additional copy of this software for another PC, maybe during a PC upgrade when they find that they have lost their licence key. Additionally people who are looking to try the Olympus digital dictation and transcription software would like to evaluate the software prior to making a decision on their purchase.

Also popular with digital transcription businesses looking for a way to convert DSS Pro .ds2 audio files to older style .dss audio files to save them upgrading their transcription software - this is possible in the Dictation Module.

Olympus are now offering a free 60 trial of this powerful software. Head over to our main blog for more details - click the heading above.