Built on its series of continuous voice recognition products, ViaVoice for Windows Release 10 Pro USB allows users to launch and surf the Internet, access Web pages through voice-activated links, dictate directly into applications including Microsoft Word, and utilize specialized vocabularies, as well as transcribe speech dictated into digital handheld recorders.
ViaVoice for Windows Release 10 gives users another way to communicate with computing devices when a keyboard or mouse is not the mode of choice. ViaVoice is part of IBM's speech technology portfolio. Technology from IBM's ViaVoice family is currently used by companies in areas including telematics, handheld computers and transcription. Get SpeechTech eWeekly in your inbox - Sign up for free.
Not surprisingly, ViaVoice also has lower memory requirements--about KB per minute for recorded speech, which is less than the 1. ViaVoice understood our straight dictation moderately well.
We found that it recognized larger words, such as subscription , but fumbled with smaller parts of speech that people tend to mumble, such as prepositions and contractions. Luckily, ViaVoice is designed to continue improving its speech-recognition vocabulary by analyzing the text errors that you correct.
You can also return to the User Wizard for further training. Voice commands within ViaVoice are logical, but the program sometimes had trouble recognizing them. In theory, you can improve performance by doing further voice-recognition training to acclimate ViaVoice to your pronunciation or by saying an "attention word" before speaking a command.
Unfortunately, neither option improved voice-command recognition for us. As with Dragon, you can use ViaVoice with a number of popular programs. You can dictate text into the bundled ViaVoice SpeakPad word processor or directly into Microsoft Word 97, , or Intuitive commands such as "Open document" are available for Word and Excel 97, , and , and for Outlook 97, 98, , and ViaVoice lets you surf the Internet with voice commands, but we found it unresponsive when we tried to select links verbally.
The voice-activated Voice Mouse was more effective for clicking links. Since ViaVoice is designed for dictation, some users will find its customizable macros handy.
The macros let users insert boilerplate text and create customized forms. ViaVoice also transcribes from some Sanyo and Olympus digital recorders. ViaVoice 10 arrives with a decent printed user guide and searchable help files. The Information Central menu includes tips on getting started and using the help files. It also provides a list of voice commands, a product-support link, and productivity tips. In our version, however, embedded links to online technical support led to an old, unavailable IBM Web page.
Telephone and e-mail support will cost you dearly. We reached a helpful tech assistant by phone after several minutes. Telephone help is available weekdays from 6 a. The Good ViaVoice 10 is affordable, works with Macs, and offers decent voice recognition and customizable macros.
ViaVoice 10's setup is prone to glitches, its voice-command recognition is uneven, its technical support is pricey, and it is not entirely hands-free.
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