Mankind uses speech extensively to communicate. Imagine how your life would be affected if you did not have the power of speech. You would carry your handy dandy keyboard and instant printer around with you daily. If a friend were about to step off the curb and get run over by traffic, you would frantically whip out your keyboard, type WATCH OUT! in big bold letters, and wave it in front of his face. Imagine your frustration at the local grocery store, as you and the checker exchange notes about the on-special price of an item, while the line builds up
behind you..............
How fast can a modern speech recognition app' translate speech into text with no mistakes?In my case, 384 wpm, because that is the very fastest that I can speak, and still have another human understand what I am saying. Neither my hardware nor my software limited me, only the rate at which I talked limited me. My computer is a run of the mill model that has a 2.4 GHz Intel core 2 duo CPU. Ram is 4 GB. OS is Vista Ultimate, with all the patches............................
I'm going to be sitting on an airplane for too many hours. I'd like to watch some videos on the laptop and am wondering the best way to maximize battery life. Which uses the least power?
- Playing the DVD in the DVD drive - Ripping the DVD to the hard drive and playing it from there (if I have enough free disk space) - Ripping the DVD to an external hard drive and playing it from there - Ripping the DVD to a big memory key and playing it from there
Is anyone as tired as I am of staring at the Vista Spinning Circle of Microsoft Incompetence? From boot-up to shut-down and everything in between I am utterly tired of staring at this spinning circle. Vista, SP1, SP2: nothing changes. The best anyone can say about Vista is that at least it works, sort of. The computer I write this on boots to XP, Vista and Win 7: only the middle OS spins and spins and spins waiting to do anything while the hard drive thrashes like a an out of balance clothes dryer.
Vista apologists need not respond. If you only run Vista on a machine you cannot see how utterly lousy it really is and what you are missing in performance from your hardware. Linux propeller heads can sit in a corner and spin their beanies. Some of us have to accomplish real work instead of endless futzing with an OS. On this machine Win7 has become my default OS and I will gladly pay for the final version when it goes on sale so I can recover the hard drive space wasted on Vista. The performance of the XP virtualized OS in Win7 is nearly as fast as Vista on its own.
If Microsoft had any honor (or business acumen) they would offer Win7 for a limited time as the free service pack it should be for users stuck with the utter kludge that is Vista. However Microsoft has demonstrated it would prefer to pay billions to the EU in fines rather than treat its customers fairly. It is indisputable that dead and buried General Motors executives from the 60s and 70s psychically control Steve Balmer. There is no other rational explanation for the performance of Microsoft under his direction.
I've baught a notebook pc. It has T8300 CPU, and Intel GMA 3100 Graphics. The battery has for cells and it says its capacity is 2400mAh. With Windows Vista x64, I did some normal tasks such as surfing the internet a little and some file copying, application installing. But the big problem is the battery life. After fully charged the battery, I could only use about 1 hour and half. I've searched the internet and found that the main culprit is the Aero interface. So, I guess, using Vista Basic when in battery mode, and Aero when in A.C. mode would be more reasonable. Manually changing between them in "Personalization -> Show classic..." is quite a task. Is there any easier way? How do you save battery?
I recently updated my XP to Vista and bought a new webcam Lifecam VX 1000, after downloading the Cd, when i connect through USB and try opening the camera, it shows a msg saying that APP Crash and hence check online solutions.
I bought the Half Life: Game of the Year Edition off of Amazon a few days ago. I didn't go the Steam or Source route, because I need a game I can play via LAN and not have to be connnected to the internet. I'm not 100% on how either of those work, but after talking to a few guys, I decided to go with what I know.
So I got the game today, and installed it without issue. I was excited and went to open the game to give it a run through. Then. it happened. The first error said something to the affect "you only have -6242.00K of physical memory, Half Life requires 16MB to run." Now I have 4GB of RAM. and wasn't running anything else, so I didn't know what was going on. I looked around and found out that if you have over 2GB it rolls over or something. Solution? Either run it in XP Compatibility mode or shut off the DPE off for Half Life.
After trying both seperatley and even at the same time, nothing works. I don't get the error message any more, but the screen flashes like it's going to start running, then the screen goes black. and that's it. CTRL+ALT+DEL, hl.exe is "Not Responding". That's all that happens.
I've tried restarting the computer, I've tried uninstalling it, then putting the setup.exe in compatibility mode then running it (also stops responding) and nothing works. Can anyone offer up another course of action or help me out?
My msn messenger or windows life messenger cannot detect my front mic in a voice call i.e. the caller cannot hear my voice although i can hear his. In my windows Sound Recording properties, the status of front mic button is Working. Besides, i also can record sound using Sound Recorder with my front mic. Anything to do with the setting in MSN/Live messenger?
Have just discovered that my new laptop, an Advent 9315 2GB mem, Vista Home etc, contains a SiS graphics system which is not supported by Second Life. What can I do? Also I have loaded Call of Duty 4 but it too won't run.
I have been having a problem with "Half Life 2 Engine" When ever I try to play CS:S (Why is this crashing because of HL2 Engine?) I start playing for awile everything is perfect and then a random crash. Vista tries to find the problem and comes up with this: Problem caused by Half-Life 2 Game Engine This problem was caused by Half-Life 2 Game Engine, which was created by Valve Corporation. Microsoft has been unable to contact the manufacturer and has no further information available at this time. How can I fix this? It's very annoying to randomly crash every little bit.
I recently received The Orange Box, and wish to play Half-Life 2. I am running a Vista Home Premium x64 machine updated to SP1. However, whenever I run Half-Life 2, either from within Steam or from a shortcut, Half-Life 2 starts, adjusts the screen resolution, and freezes on a black screen with a frozen Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. I have added "-32bit" to the shortcut line and have set the program to run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode. This fix has made Portal run fine, so I don't know why it won't work for Half-Life 2.
I've had my laptop for 3months and now, although the laptop is running off the mains fine, it wont charge via the mains charger. the small battery symbol is indicating that my laptop is plugged in, but is at 0% battery and is not charging. would this be a problem with the battery or with the charger?
I built a new system, installing Vista Business 64bit to take full advantage of DX10 and large amounts of memory. Not having many games lying around, I decided to download steam and install Half Life 2. If you are reading this, and using a 64bit edition of windows, then my guess is you are having problems with Half Life 2. I encountered two problems, and after a few hours was able to solve both of them.
GAME HANGS ON INITIAL LOAD (BLURRY IMAGE SCREEN) "64-bit" message was at top of screen game never loaded Potential cause: It seems that while steam intended HL2 to have a 64bit edition, with an update along the line (maybe with the release of Left4Dead according to others) the support was broken and the game doesn't load.
Fix:Unfortunately, the fix removes the 64bit potential. In steam, right click half life 2, and select. From the dialogue box, click Enter "-32bit" and select This got HL2 to load, where upon playing I encountered problem number 2.GAMEPLAY CAUSES FULL SYSTEM HANG- Symptoms: After playing for less than 5 minutes, the game would crash and the three fingered salute (ctrl+alt+del) couldn't get me out of it......................
I understand the point of a "maximum processor state." You can lower it to restrict the CPU and gain battery life. The CPU consumes less energy and the fans consume less energy from a cooler thermal load. I've never really understood the need for a "minimum processor state" though or what it even does for that matter.
Hopefully this will be a constructive upbeat productive thread, unless the usual trolls pollute this thread.
(SR = "Speech Recognition" to save space)
Just how useful is SR, to Windows users?
That of course depends on the user.
One could say that SR is 100% useless to 99% of the people in this NG, which would be a compelling argument, difficult to dispute.
However we Windows users get SR free, so it would be a shame to waste it, *IF* there is any reason at all for us to use SR.
So, is there a reason?
Yes, a "free form" blog is one reason.
If you have anything at all worth "talking" to another person, then that is a candidate for doing faster and easier with SR.
Of course if you have NOTHING worth talking about...
So it all boils down to _your_ "worth" to other people, as perceived by those people themselves.
To close this post, I have one more thing worth mentioning, namely that our thoughts are fleeting, Great Thoughts often "get lost in the shuffle".
It is only when we commit those thoughts to permanent text that those Great Thoughts can do any good for other people, or even for ourselves.
SR is an excellent way to "capture" your Great Thoughts; I carry around a 3 ounce digital recorder just for this purpose - - - and yes, you have guessed right, my real name is Bill Gates, and I owe my fortune to that tiny digital recorder, which is one important difference between me and you ordinary mortals.
because I CAPTURED my great thoughts, while you let your great thoughts slip through you fingers.
The "Analyze Written Documents" feature of WSR appears to be broken. I try to keep up-to-date on three different SR apps, which is not easy, because of the differences. The three SR apps are:
....using most recent versions of above 3 apps. Without going into the reason _why_ , I would like to be able to speak the following, and have it come out exactly as shown in the two examples below:........
How can I stop Speech Recognation? I have not install it but when the pc starts up SR pops up and ask for setting up the microphone etc. I dont want to use SR.
Every time I open an Office application (Word, Excel, etc.) or Outlook, then Speech recognition seems to fire up. When I have my headset plugged in (USB Logitech headset & Microphone) I get a little panel appear which has a microphone icon and it says “Sleeping” or “Try saying “Start Listening””. I have to close this every time. If I unplug my headset & microphone, then on opening the applications I get a pop up message saying “Speech Recognition could not start” with accompanying text of “make sure your audio hardware is working properly and check your audio configuration in the Audio Devices and Sound Themes control panel”.
Every time I open an application it starts, and I don’t find that friendly. Even with the microphone plugged in, and the setting turned to “Off”, it fires up. Just how do I get it to go way for good (and be controlled when I want to use it?) – any ideas? (On Vista Home premium 32 bit SP2)
i was just looking for vista voice recognition and i cant find it anywhere ive check in the vista ease of access and still no luck. is there a website where i can download this from?
Groking speech recognition, there are many subtle ways to fail, as some of you have already found out.
The so-called Help system in WSR is next to useless.
Now that I am well on my way to learning WSR, I can ask my computer the Really Big Questions in life, such as:
1) What is the meaning of life.
2) Who invented toilet paper.
3) If all personal computers disappeared, what real effect would it have on mankind.
4) Is eating beans allowed inside the ISS.
5) Will a USA colony on Mars be democrats or republicans.
6) Now that I can speak directly to my computer by voice, what should I do if my computer suddenly starts talking back to me.
I doubt if WSR has any practical uses for the "average user", but it certainly is fun to play with.
Mark-
-- I was not going to post the following crap, but "andy t" likes it. It gives him purpose in life, to go into one of his long abusive tirades; I can't deprive him of that pleasure.
The following "test" is what I am going to subject WSR to, about a week from now. To pass the test, no more than two mistakes can occur, when I "speak in" this article.
It will take me roughly 3 minutes to speak-in this roughly 200 word medical abstract.
I know, that is a sluggish 67wpm instead of a persons normal 160wpm normal speaking rate, but this slow rate is common for intricate technical dictation.
I copied and pasted this article from its original medical website.
I'm sure most will agree that this is a very stiff "test" for _any_ speech recognition app.
My bet is that WSR will pass this test, but we will see for sure in roughly a week from now.
This week is needed by me to get the rest of my smarts about using WSR.
I know very little about using WSR, as my time has been spent with other speech apps, namely Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10.0 and MacSpeech Dictate 1.5.2
Test abstract begins after line of asterisks
*****************************
Maximizing therapeutic gain with gemcitabine and fractionated radiation.
Mason KA, Milas L, Hunter NR, Elshaikh M, Buchmiller L, Kishi K, Hittelman K, Ang KK.
Department of Experimental Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, USA.
PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE:
The nucleoside analogue gemcitabine inhibits cellular repair and repopulation, induces apoptosis, causes tumor growth delay, and enhances radiation-induced growth delay. After single doses of drug and radiation, maximum enhancement of tumor response was obtained when gemcitabine preceded radiation by at least 24 h. Conversely, the cellular radioresponse of the normal gastrointestinal epithelium was slightly protected when gemcitabine and radiation were separated by 24 h. This differential response created a time frame within which therapeutic gain could be maximized. In our present investigation, we sought to define the most therapeutically beneficial scheme of gemcitabine administration when combined with fractionated radiotherapy.
All 3 schedules of drug administration produced therapeutic gain; however, when gemcitabine was given more than once in a 5-fraction radiation treatment schedule, normal tissue toxicity increased. The highest therapeutic gain (1.4) was achieved by giving a single dose of gemcitabine (25 mg/kg) 24 h before the start of fractionated radiotherapy.
I have started tinkering with the built in Windows Speech Recognition within my Vista operating system. I find it quite novel that you can talk to the screen and your words come out on it. Granted that I have cheated at times when it goes wrong and I have to type in corrections but I was wondering if there are any experts out there who could tell me how to make this more accurate?
I have also invested in a program called Dragon Naturally Speaking and loaded it onto my machine today. I started tinkering with this but I believe I have to learn completely different commands to that of Windows Speech Recognition.
I see big bucks being spent for speech-to-text uses in business (billions) - but I question if speech recognition has valid use for us "hobby" users. Anyone here use Dragon NaturallySpeaking for trivial uses? If so, what can it do better than simply banging on a keyboard?
My interest in Vista Speech is limited to finding out why I am having trouble getting _consistent_ speed/accuracy out of it. By accuracy I mean at least 98%, preferably 99%. By speed I mean at least 80 wpm. (plain everyday words, not technical words)
I normally speak at 160 wpm, so if I speak for two minutes, 320 words get changed to text. Of the 320 words, I expect 3 words to need correction, which takes another two minutes for me to do. 320 / 4 = 80 wpm on average...........
Does WSR (Vista Speech) provide a way of selecting _which_ documents to scan in order to improve speech recognition?
Near as I can determine, it does not seem to matter at allwhether my Vista Document folder is empty, or chock-full of text documents, as far as speech recognition accuracy is concerned.
I _did_ check-mark the box that allows user documents to be read, but it does not seem to have any effect one way or the other.
To me, it is just an alternative way to create text. Some advantages, some disadvantages over the regular keyboard way of creating text. There are two modern speech app's that Vista users can run on their computers, WSR and DNS. Vista users who happen to use Macs can run three speech app's on their Mac, WSR, DNS, MSD.
WSR = Windows Speech Recognition DNS = Dragon NaturallySpeaking MSD = MacSpeech Dictate
WSR is free, provided you use the built in microphone that comes with your PC. I think a lot of WSR users wind up buying a microphone, which can run the cost up to $50 or $300, depending on the microphone. DNS costs up to $1,600 which does not include all the auxillary hardware and software, which can easily run up the total cost to over $7,000 if you happen to be a doctor. MSD costs $200, microphone included.
Everyone has their own opinion about the value, or lack thereof, of speech recognition app's. Some people speak from experience, others speak from a broad base of ignorance, still others are trying to sell you something, like microphones for example. In my case, I do not really care whether you use WSR, DNS, or MSD - - -my only concern is for the medical community, where I do volunteer work...........
When I'm dictating text to the computer, if I repeat a phrase that I've dictated before (and I often repeat things like book titles), it will stop taking dictation and instead move the cursor to the place where the phrase appears previously in the document. The only way I've figured out to get it "unstuck" and continue taking dictation is to type the repeated phrase myself.
I see that Vista offers Speech Recognition software that allows you to open apps and dictate speech into Word, Wordpad, etc. Does anyone have any idea on how this free Speech Recognition software compares to the Dragon software that I've been seeing advertised on TV commercials?
Does anyone know if you can take a sound file created with a handheld digital recorder and turn it into written text by using the Vista Speech Recognition function?
Pros and cons of using speech recognition (SR) on a "personal" computer in 2009/2010 This might be opening up a can of worms, let's see if I can stick to the subject, without straying off on all the side subjects that might crop up.
1) generally faster than typing 2) frees up hands 3) can be done without immediate access to a computer, i.e. with a tiny digital recorder 4) frees up more of a persons brain, i.e. because speaking is more natural and intuitive than typing 5) can be done while a person is wandering around his house doing chores, i.e. wireless microphones like the Samson Airline 77 have a 300 foot range 6) modern SR apps can be used in very noisy places,such as next to a loud TV, without adversely affecting the text accuracy
