As I said in my previous post, I am a big fan of Dragon Dictation on the iPhone. It has been a boon when travelling. I can fire off a text or e-mail in a fraction of the time it takes to finger type. And now Apple has gone one better introducing the Siri Voice Assistant and Dictation on the iPad 3.

But the problem is that if like me, you want to use speech recognition on your iphone or iPad when you’re out and about, chances are you are in a noisy environment e.g. in a station, on a train, in an airport, in your car in a busy motorway service station. Then you have a problem. Although the iPhone and iPad have noise cancelling microphone which is fine for phone calls, it’s not noise cancelling enough for speech recognition. If you try to create some dictation in a noisy place, chances are you’ll end up doing so many corrections that you might as well have finger – typed it in the first place.

Building on our initial product entry, we can now offer two comfortable and attractive improved noise – cancelling headset microphones with adapter cables to connect to the iPhone and iPad.

We tested word recognition accuracy with this headset on the iPhone 4S in an e-mail using the Siri Voice Assistant. We dictated the “Rainbow Passage” with loud simulated office noise in the background, pausing every one or two sentences so that Siri could catch up. We found that we achieved 50% fewer errors when dictating in noisy conditions with the noise cancelling microphone as compared to the iPhone on its own and we even achieved a better accuracy score than when we used the iPhone alone in a quiet environment!

We also tested accuracy transcribing recordings made with this headset on the iPhone 4S in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. For the purposes of testing, again with the headset connected to the iPhone, we created a standalone speech profile for the iPhone in Dragon NaturallySpeaking after reading 6 minutes of one of the training texts using Dictamus as our recording application and selecting “Handheld Device” as the dictation source. We then dictated the “Rainbow Passage” without any background noise and then a second time with loud simulated office noise in the background. We transcribed the recordings in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The result? Word recognition accuracy hardly suffered at all from the loud background noise!

The new products are available from the speech Empowered Computing online store – product link  

If  you would like further information on how to be even more productive with your iPhone when away from the office, please contact us.

Peter Maddern
Speech Empowered Computing

.To help our customer, I made the following screencast video a demonstration of some useful commands:-

The screencast was made with Dragon naturallySpeaking Professional 11.5 and Microsoft Excel 2010.

Peter
Speech Empowered Computing

But you may want to capitalise certain words every time you use them in a document. Is there a way of doing this without having to say “Cap” each time before the word that you would like to capitalise?

Yes there is and the following video demonstrates how to do this quite simply

(But if there is the odd occasion when you don’t want the word that you have set to be always capitalised to be capitalised, you would just say “no caps – Word”).

Peter
Speech Empowered Computing

Note that the convention for creating a word list text file for importing into Dragon chanhed with version 11.

With version 11, it is now

@Version=Plato
written form\\spoken form

Whereas with pevious versions it was

written form/spoken form

I am attaching here the text file I refer to in the video – ordinals  – if you click on the previous link, the text file should open in your browser from where you can save it onto your desktop as a text file . Go ahead and import it ”as is” if you have Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 11 but amend it if you have a previous version i.e. remove the “@Version=Plato” in the first line and replace each “\\” with “/”.

Peter
Speech Empowered Computing

You can get around this behaviour by clicking on the “Commands” tab in the Dragon Options and putting a checkmark in the box next to “Require Click to select menus and controls” as in the following screenshot

After making this change,you have to say “click send” before Dragon will send your e-mail on its merry way. If you accidentally say the word “send” during an e-mail, Dragon won’t press the send button accidentally any more so no more embarrassing half finished e-mails going out of the door!

However, what this will mean is that if you want to “voice drive” the ribbon in Word or Outlook 2007 or 2010, you have to say the word “click” before the appropriate file menu item.

Hope this helps somebody.

Peter Maddern
Speech Empowered Computing

The following is a report of our evaluation of this recently – introduced wireless microphone with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Please contact us if you would like to get further information or guidance on this system.

About the Plantronics Savi 440

The Plantronics Savi 440 appears to be the successor to the excellent Plantronics Savi 430 wireless microphone. The headset portion has been completely redesigned and is now very light and sleek looking. This headset retains the same hinged USB adapter that came with the Savi 430.

Note that this is not a Bluetooth microphone and you cannot use it to take calls with your mobile phone.

Plantronics claim that the Savi 440 is the lightest headset on the market. It is part of Plantronics’ pioneering portable DECT range. It comes with the flexibility of three different wearing styles and it has a 120 metre wireless range so you can roam freely around the office and multitask. It comes with hot swappable batteries which can be changed mid-conversation, enabling unlimited talk time, and Plantronics say that it also features outstanding sound quality with natural-sounding DSP and wideband audio. Plantronics are positioning the Savi 440 wireless headset for users in campus-like business environments, using a laptop for voice calls and multimedia. Up to four different Savi headsets can be connected to the same call.

The following tests were done on 24^th and 25^th October, 2011

Setup

• Model tested – Plantronics Savi 440A Convertible DECT wireless headset microphone, part number 83359-02. This was the non- Microsoft office Communicator (non – MOC) version, with “over the head” wearing style – note that the MOC version will only work when Microsoft Office Communicator is installed on the PC. As we found out, the MOC version will simply not work with Dragon NaturallySpeaking if Microsoft Office Communicator is not installed.
• The tip of microphone boom was approximately 2 thumbs’ gap from the corner of the mouth
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking version – Professional 11.5
• PC specification – Windows 7 64 bit with 2 Ghz dual core processor and 4 Gb RAM
• Testing was carried out immediately after creating a new speech profile after reading one “easy reading” training text
• Dictated “The Rainbow Passage” into Microsoft Word 2010

Firstly, a dedicated speech profile in Dragon NaturallySpeaking was created for the new microphone by reading the “Talking to Your Computer” easy reading enrolment text. The following are some screen shots from the audio setup wizard process in creating our speech profile in Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Screen shots of Audio Setup Wizard in Dragon

The above shows virtually zero electronic “noise” in the signal as demonstrated by the extremely flat yellow noise floor.

When pressing the “Play” button in this screen, voice playback quality was very clear

Word recognition accuracy testing

Once the speech profile had been created, word recognition accuracy with this microphone was assessed by dictating a 335 word piece of text called “The Rainbow Passage”. This text is often used by speech recognition resellers for accuracy testing because it contains all the phonemes (word sounds) in the English language. The text was read 3 times and the average accuracy from the 3 readings was taken.

Dictation of “The Rainbow Passage” was then repeated, this time with background noise from a “Thriving Busy Office” CD (simulated office noise) in the background at high volume. The simulated office noise comprised people speaking to each other, keyboarding and telephones ringing out.

Results:-

Average of 3 readings no background noise – 98.7% accuracy.

Average of 3 readings with background noise – 97.1% accuracy – I feel that this is a most excellent result.

Observations

Interestingly, when I dictated with simulated office noise in the background, I was pleased to note that the yellow volume bar next to the Dragon microphone icon appeared to stay yellow showing it was not reacting to the background noise. (This compares with testing on its predecessor, the Plantronics Savi 430 wireless microphone which did cause Dragon’s volume meter to react to background noise). Typically, even microphones which the manufacturers claim to be noise cancelling react such that Dragon’s volume bar changes from yellow to green indicating that the microphone is picking up background noise. However, background noise was present when I issued the “play that back” command to Dragon to play back my dictation audio although it was not that pronounced.

Assessment of background noise

I made the following audio recording with the Windows 7 built in sound recorder without any background noise and then with simulated office noise from a  “Thriving Busy Office” CD playing in the background. Microphone volume in Windows was set to maximum for this microphone.

Although the background noise is clearly discernible, my speech does seem to predominate. This augurs well for speech recognition accuracy.

(Note that this WMA file is present in our original Microsoft Word document but is not available in this blog HTML. Please request if you would like a copy of the file.

Wearing style

The Savi 440 comes with three possible wearing styles:-

1. Over the head headband

2. Ear clips

3. Neckband

For speech recognition accuracy, the ideal position of the tip of the microphone boom is 1 to 2 thumbs’ gap from the corner of the mouth. It was found that the over the head headband option gave the best, most comfortable fit and of all the wearing styles, was the one that best facilitated the optimum 1 to 2 thumbs’ gap positioning for speech recognition.

Problems encountered

1. I found that when I plugged in the USB adapter into the PC that had been woken up from a Windows hibernation state, the display would not turn green indicating that Windows had not recognised it. Instead, it stayed red. However, on re – booting the PC and reinserting the adapter, it turned green immediately ready for connecting with the headset microphone.

2. I found that on using the product on the second day of testing, the headset soon started to beep indicating a low battery. This despite the fact that I had fully charged the headset on the first day. On reading the manual, I then realised that you are advised to put the headset into “sleep mode” when not in use. This is done by pressing the call button for 3 seconds. There is no on/off switch on the headset. I admit to finding this somewhat confusing.

Conclusions

1. Speech quality with this microphone is excellent; especially considering it is a wireless microphone! You are unable to tell that you are wearing a wireless headset as voice playback your voice from the PC matches that of the best corded headset microphones.

2. Accuracy is improved as compared to the Savi 430 wireless microphone (98.7% versus 98.2%) although it is not known if this is a statistically significant result. Accuracy in the presence of background noise is compatible (97.1% versus 96.9%).

3. Word recognition accuracy in Dragon NaturallySpeaking is excellent when there is no background noise and is still very good in the presence of background noise.

4. The Savi 440 was found to be very comfortable to wear for long periods of time with the provided headband

5. I would endorse the Savi 440 headset microphone for speech recognition use in quiet to somewhat noisy environments as we plan to use it as our wireless headset of choice when delivering speech recognition demonstrations to large groups.

Recommendations

Consideration might be given by Plantronics to making it more clear in the manual that you should put the headset into sleep mode after using it at the end of the day otherwise you may have to wait till the headset is recharged before being able to use it again, causing a delay to starting your work.

Peter Maddern

Speech Empowered Computing

25^th October, 2011

The following is a report of our evaluation of this system with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

Please contact us for further information or guidance on this system.

Background

Sennheiser Communications originally released the DW Office DECT wireless headset microphone and base station for dual use with telephones and PC via an innovative switching system. Later, Sennheiser introduced two new variants, namely the Sennheiser DW Pro 1 and Sennheiser DW Pro 2 wireless headset microphones. These are mono and stereo versions of the original DW Office but whereas the original DW Office had a rigid microphone boom, the DW Pro 1 and Pro 2 have a flexible microphone boom. This means that the tip of the microphone boom can be positioned more closely to the corner of the mouth thereby increasing voice quality/reducing the effect of background noise whilst talking on the telephone or using the microphone with computer programmes such as speech recognition and VOIP applications such as Skype.

This report evaluates the functionality of this latest version DW Pro 1 wireless headset microphone with the Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software version 11.

Note that the DW Pro 1 and Pro 2 work on DECT wireless frequency 1.880 to 1.900 MHz (EU, UK and AUS) and 1.920 to 1.930 MHz (US). It is not a Bluetooth system and you cannot take calls on your mobile phone with it.

Our setup

Firstly, the base station was connected to the handset port of a landline telephone and the headset was routed to the telephone via the toggle switch on the base station. The microphone sensitivity at the back of the base station was adjusted up and down whilst speaking to another person on the telephone. It was found that the optimum setting for best volume, clarity and non-echoing on a call was setting 4. (This contrasted with the setting that we used when we tested the original DW Office headset – in that case the optimum setting on the telephone call was setting 6). Call clarity of the DW Pro 1 on both sides of the conversation was found to be excellent!

Therefore, we did our DW Pro 1 testing with Dragon NaturallySpeaking on microphone sensitivity setting 4 (as opposed to using setting 6 when we tested the original DW Office headset).

The base station comes with a switch to select either wideband or narrowband mode. For this testing, it was left on the default wideband mode (which has a specified talk time of up to 8 hours (as compared to up to 12 hours with narrowband mode).

Our computer setup was as follows:-

• Speech recognition software – Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional 11.5
• We tested with a newly- created UK English language model
• Testing was carried out immediately after creating a new speech profile after reading one “easy reading” training text
• The tip of microphone boom was approximately 1 – 2 thumb’s gap from the corner of the mouth
• Windows 7 64-bit, 2.2 GHz dual core processor, 4 GB RAM with 8 GB Ready Boost

Word recognition accuracy in Dragon with and without background noise

The procedure was to dictate a dictation text called “The Rainbow Passage” into Microsoft Word 2010. This passage was chosen as it has all the phonemes (word sounds) in the English language.

Average of 3 readings with no background noise – 98.7% accuracy

The three readings of “The Rainbow Passage” were repeated, this time with loud, simulated office noise in the background. I played a CD called “Thriving Busy Office” on a CD player at maximum volume in the background. The yellow volume bar next to the Dragon microphone icon went into the green showing it was reacting to the background noise. However, on issuing the “play that back” command in Dragon to play back my dictation audio, although the background noise was clearly audible, my speech was predominant over the background noise

Average of 3 readings with background noise – 99.2% accuracy

Given the statistical deviation inherent in this type of testing, we feel that the above two results are identical within statistical limits. In this regard, we find the DW Pro 1 to deliver excellent accuracy as well as excellent noise cancellation with Dragon NaturallySpeaking speech recognition software.

There has been some concern voiced on certain speech recognition forums internationally that the DW Pro 1 does not perform that well with Dragon NaturallySpeaking in office environments which have background noise. We must say however that in our testing, we do not find this to be an issue. Note of course that in the summertime, many offices have either fans or air conditioning running and it is possible that windage could be an issue affecting word recognition accuracy. We were unable to test for the effect of wind noise on accuracy in our testing.

For the sake of completeness, in the Appendix, we have summarised all our historical testing on a range of Sennheiser wireless microphones. The historical testing data shows that the Sennheiser DW Pro 1 is the highest performing Sennheiser wireless headset tested to date.

Audio Setup Wizard in Dragon NaturallySpeaking

One can determine a lot about the audio quality of a microphone from running Dragon’s audio setup wizard. The following screen shots are self – explanatory.

Note the low noise (yellow) in the speech signal (green) as demonstrated by the extremely flat yellow noise floor.

Our conclusions

1. The DW Pro 1 with headband style was found to be very comfortable to wear for long periods of time

2. The author found that speech quality with this microphone is excellent; especially considering it is a wireless microphone! You are unable to tell that you are wearing a wireless headset as playback of your recorded voice from the PC matches that of the best corded headset microphones.

3. Word recognition accuracy in Dragon NaturallySpeaking is excellent when there is no background noise and we found it to be statistically identical in the presence of loud background noise.

4. Speech Empowered Computing can fully endorse the Sennheiser DW Pro 1 for speech recognition use in quiet and in noisy environments.

Dr Peter Maddern
Speech Empowered Computing
7th November, 2011

Appendix

Historical test data

Nuance recently announced Dragon Dictate 2.5, an update to version 2.0. The “what’s new” can be found at:-

http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-mac/dictate-2-5-features/index.htm

This is a free upgrade for version 2.0 users.

However, some users reported crashes when using the software on Macs running the latest Lion OS.

Nuance have fixed this with an incremental 2.51 update. See

http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-mac/mac-lion/index.htm#macspeech%20dictate10_7

which states…….

With the release of Dragon Dictate 2.5.1 in August, customers can effectively use the latest release of Dragon Dictate with OS X Lion. Some customers of version 2.5 may experience occasional crashes, so it’s important to install Dictate 2.5.1 (a free update) for the best user experience. If you are not automatically prompted to download this update when opening Dictate, check for updates by going to the Dictate menu and choosing “Check for updates.”

Peter Maddern

We plan to make a number of videos related to speech recognition technology in the future.

It’s not often we talk about products other than speech recognition products, but we have been really impressed by an online package we have come across to help users create video messages for their websites and blogs with inexpensive equipment such as an iPhone or Kodak Zi8 Pocket Camcorder. Yes, that’s right – you can get great videos made for your business with an iPhone or consumer HD pocket camcorder.

The training programme we have found is called Pocket Video Power. We have been looking for guidance for making videos and now I think we have found it! We purchased the training programme recently and have been highly impressed by it. By way of examples, the following are two promotional videos created with inexpensive equipment using the techniques taught in the course.

Below is an extract from the Pocket Video Power website.

Using Video is becoming essential for anyone trying to market their business online. Whether it’s on your homepage, blog, Facebook or YouTube if you don’t have a video presence you are missing out on new leads and customers.

But the snag is it can cost anywhere from £400 – £1000 + just to get a single video made for you, and one video is never enough.

To really boost your rankings you need to create regular video content and make Video Marketing part of your overall marketing strategy.

Learning to make your own videos is a way to effectively market your business without breaking the bank.

You can gain valuable new skills, create an economical flow of new traffic and connect to your prospects in a direct way using the power of video.

Pocket Video Power is an online training programme created by Jules Watkins a British Video Marketing and Videomaking Expert. Jules has a background of over 10 Years as a TV Producer/
Director/Shooter making reality and factual shows for BBC, Channel 4 and MTV. He also make videos for business, runs blogs and markets with video.

Jules has turned his focus to training people in business like you to make high quality, creative videos to market their businesses using economical kit.

Pocket Video Power is online video training where you can watch over the shoulder as videos are filmed. Topics include filming yourself, interviewing skills, making powerful customer testimonials,
filming behind the scenes, filming physical products, TV editing tricks to get people to take action and tips on how to get your videos seen.

There are over 40 videos inside the training plus resources including a YouTube guide, a recommended kit list and free music.

You can also get direct feedback on your videos and interact with Jules to get your own video issues solved.

If you want to harness the power of online Video Marketing for your business, take a look at Pocket Video Power.

VoicePower 11.53 adds:

New easier to use, more intuitive, fully speech enabled, graphical interface

New and improved documentation

New, speech enabled startup, restart and shutdown utility

Automatically launches Dragon and VoicePower with your most recent user profile

Copy shortcut to Startup folder for hands-free startup of Dragon and VoicePower

New “Save to” / “Open from” Voice Shortcut command

New mouse commands

New VoicePower search command (find anything in VoicePower by keyword)

Improved copy commands (does what Dragon by itself can’t do)

Select, copy, and paste text from anywhere to anywhere, automatically hands-free by speech

Works even with the Dragon Dictation Box open

Works with searchable PDF documents

Hundreds of minor improvements & bug fixes throughout the program

Works with Dragon 10, 11.0 and 11.5

32- bit & 64-bit versions

New trial versions for 32-bit and 64-bit (for information, e-mail mail@speechempoweredcomputing.co.uk)

Peter Maddern
Speech Empowered Computing