Thinking of Voice Recognition on the Mac? Have a look at the Demo videos from Nuance

With the recent release of Dragon Dictate version 3 for Mac from the people at Nuance many are keen to try this technology. Typically held back by the "i'm not sure I would use it" little voice in your head or by a bad experience of two with Siri, voice recognition on your Mac is a whole different ball game. Why?

Well first of all it's running on your Mac. You super powerful (compared to your iOS device) computer, with plenty of ram for all that complex voice to text conversion. Powerful enough to process your spoken words on your machine instead of recording and sending your audio off to a remote server for processing which is how Siri works.

Not only that but by keeping your spoken dictation local you build on your personal voice profile, Dragon will learn from what you actually say. The more you use it the more accurate it becomes for your style of dictation and the words you commonly use.

But me telling you all this is great but you really need to see Dragon Dictate 3 in action. The lovely crowd over at Nuance have created a few "how to" and demo videos of Dragon Dictate 3 in action. I have accumulated all of them into one blog post and I describe what you are viewing in layman's terms so that you can understand exactly what you can achieve with speech recognition software on the Mac.

Click here to head to our main blog with the post showing all the Dragon Dictate 3 demo videos

Use Streaming Audio To Make Your Blog More Interesting and Accessible To Vision Impaired People

Recently I started to add streaming audio of my blog posts being read aloud on my main blog - idictate.com.au. The original intention was for vision impaired people however the side-effect was that lazy/time poor people could also benefit from having blog posts read aloud to them.

The idea originated after Olympus started to design digital voice recorders with the vision impaired people in mind. This started with using tactile keys and progressed to having a feature called "voice guidance" built into most of the digital voice recorders. Voice guidance prompt the user at every press of a button so that they are aware of what they are selecting, particularly useful to the vision impaired as the screens on digital voice recorders can be quite small and difficult to read. Olympus have gone one step further with the DM-5 digital voice recorder which also supports Daisy Consortium books and can read aloud text from a file.

To facilitate the streaming audio in my WordPress blog I use a service called Sound Cloud.

Please click here to hit to my main blog where you can see streaming audio of my posts in action.

This blog post was written using Dragon Dictate 3 from Nuance, voice recognition software for the Mac.

Olympus Pro Dictaphone Users Unable To Load Their Audio Into Dragon Dictate 3 Transcription Module

A slight issue has been found when using the Olympus professional digital Dictaphone's (DS-7000,DS-5000,DS-3500,DS-3400) with Nuance's new voice recognition software for the Mac, Dragon Dictate 3.

The problem seems to be around the conversion of the native audio format recorded on the pro dictaphones - .DS2 - when converted to a format required by the transcription module in Dragon Dictate 3.

The error when loading the file for transcription is:

The file "filename", cannot be transcribed
Dictate cannot use files with sampling rates below 22.050 kilohertz.

Olympus' own software for the Mac, DSS Player Plus version 7, only converts .DS2 audio files to 16 kHz audio files, Dragon Dictate 3 requires 22 kHz audio.

We have contacted our people at Olympus in Sydney and have advised them of what we have found. I understand the Olympus audio development team are now also aware of this issue and will be looking at a possible upgrade to the DSS player plus version 7 software in the near future.

There is a way to convert the .DS2 to audio files to 22 kHz audio and that is using the Sonority software which is supplied with the higher end digital voice and meeting recorders from Olympus (like the DS-3/DS-5/LS-3/LS-10 etc). However, this software is not easily found as an online download and we are working with the Olympus to see if this can be made freely available.

For more information please visit our main blog post on this issue - click here.

This blog post was dictated using DragonDictate three by

This blog post was dictated using the Dragon microphone For iPhone and Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac.

[Mac] Olympus DSS Player Update to v7.3.2 - Mountain Lion Compatible

Olympus in Australia have just released an update to the DSS Player Software for Mac taking it to version 7.3.2.

This is a free update with only two key components, Mountain Lion compatibility and higher security encryption of your digital dictation files by encrypting at 256bit.

DSS Player Plus dictation software for Mac is supplied with the Pro line of Olympus digital dictaphones, the DS-7000 and DS-3500.

Click here to head to our main blog for the download link for DSS Player Plus update to v7.3.2

Voice Recognition Software for Mac - Dragon Dictate 3 - Now Transcribes From Recorded Audio Files

After years of waiting, this key feature, voice recognition from your recorded audio, will now be available on the Mac with the release of Dragon Dictate 3 from Nuance.

This feature has been available for a very long time in the Windows world with the Premium and Professional versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking being able to transcribe from an audio recording of your speech made on a digital voice recorder or dictaphone. Indeed many doctors and lawyers make use of Dragon for fast turnaround of transcription rather than burden a secretary.

Announced as one of the key improvements in Dragon Dictate for the Mac along with faster and more accurate transcription in a recent press release from the Nuance US headquarters.

Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac will be Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) compatible and will be able to transcribe .MP3, .WAV, .M4A, .M4V, .MP4, .AIF and .AIFF audio recorder on a digital voice recorder or digital dictaphone. Dragon Dictate 3 will also transcribe audio recorded on Nuance's own Dragon Voice Recorder app.

For more details on this new release and for information on how to get Dragon Dictate 3 to transcribe your .dss or .ds2 digital audio files head to our main blog by clicking here.

Dragon Dictate 3 for Mac - Nuance Announce Faster, More Accurate Voice Recognition

Finally, the day I and many of my customers have waited a couple of years for - the announcement of the release of Dragon Dictate for Mac version 3 (currently at version 2.5). Why have we waited so long for this particular release of Dragon?

TRANSCRIPTION FROM RECORDED AUDIO !!

That's why there are squeals of excitement coming from the Dictate Australia office. If I had a dollar for every person I have spoken to over the last couple of years about transcription from recorded audio for Dragon on Mac I would have a couple of hundred dollars at least. So for all of you who have called, emailed and followed my blog waiting for it - here its is.

Audio recorded on digital voice recorders and of course the Dragon Recorder app can be transcribed by Dragon Dictate 3 along with directly spoken voice.

Head to our main blog for details on the supported audio formats, the full Nuance Press release and a whats new in Dragon Dictate 3 video for your visual viewing pleasure.

Not to overshadow all the over great bits that Nuance have crammed into Dictate 3 for Mac, like every Dragon release it is faster and more accurate than previous versions.

Olympus ODMS Dictation & Transcription Module Free Trial Download

The latest dictation and transcription module software from Olympus now called ODMS (Olympus Dictation Management System) comes in the box with the Pro digital dictaphones (DS-7000 and DS-3500) and with the Pro transcription kit (AS-7000).

But if you want to get your hands on the software and have a look at what it does and how to use it then you can thanks to the trial mode offered during the install of the software. Trial mode will let you install either dictation module, transcription module or both standalone on your Windows PC.

The trial install is fully featured, you can use everything that the dictation module and transcription module has to offer. Need to convert a .ds2 file to .dss? dictation module will do that. Need to try out the new transcription software but only have a RS-28 foot pedal? transcription module works with that.

The trial lasts 60 days after which you can either uninstall or if you like it grab a licence key from an authorised Olympus Professional Voice reseller. In Australia that would be us, Dictate Australia.

Click here for full details on the ODMS free trial download. Including the download link, install step by step guide and Olympus part numbers for acquiring a valid licence ley.