A few days ago, I finally realized the implications of having a headset and thusly, a mic: Voice Recognition. Voice Recognition had always fascinated me, as well as ICR (Handwriting recognition) and many more naturalizing computer technologies that rely on what my dad used to call “fuzzy logic.” It’s just kinda cool to see a computer be able to understand your voice or handwriting like that! Every time some technological breakthrough occurs that let’s the computer interact in YET ANOTHER way with the user, I get mental images of flying cars and video games played with neural inputs.
All this love of computer/user interaction technology combined, I HAD to see how the Windows 7 Speech Recognition engine had improved over the last Microsoft Speech Recognition engine I’d used (the one built into Office 97 or XP, I forget.)
Here’s the rundown on it:
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Nice interface. If you’ve used the Tablet Input Panel, it’s a similar, docking or floating window that you can hide. When it’s inactive, it has a mic icon with a gray background and when it IS listening it has the same icon on a blue background. (When it hears something it can’t understand, the background turns orange/yellow.)
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When you give it commands the window displays exactly what it’s doing or typing for you.
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It’s incredibly intuitive and even has some nice workarounds for when some applications aren’t that compatible with the system. (Technically, when the system isn’t compatible with THEM but that’s just being pedantic.)
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Fast. I mean, REALLY fast. there’s some delay as it waits if you have more to say, but once it decides the command is over, it happens almost instantly.
So it’s a pretty great Speech Recognition program. Definitely the best I’ve used. The only problem came when I needed something with an “r” sound in it. (I have a couple speech impediments: “r” sounds aren’t enunciated fully and I breathe in the middle of sentences and words, so it can handle the cutting off words fine…) All in all, if you want or need voice recognition, then this is the utility for you since it’s built RIGHT INTO Windows Vista and 7.
But, alas, you might well have noticed the title, “A Story of It’s Evils.” Well, it isn’t so much the Evils of Voice Recognition so much as it’s the evils of overuse. I, in my excited stupor, overdid it. I played around with it for hours just seeing which applications it could use! (Chrome and IE8 kinda suck with it.) I, wondering how far I could take this exciting new technology, looked into how I could play a 3D, full-screen game with it. I chose World of Warcraft to test on. I didn’t get too far until I found Vocola 3.x.
Vocola 3.x is a neat plugin for the Windows Speech Recognition engine. It allows for supremely customizable commands for any application! (Note: you cannot, as far as I know, have multiple sets of custom commands within an application! (So, essentially, if you follow my instructions for WoW, you would be best to do it on your main.))
I quickly started adding custom commands for WoW. (say “Open Commands” while your in an application, while you have the Speech Recognition engine running AND Vocola to start editing custom commands.) I made a “Forward” and “Forward stop” command to go forward and to stop (duh). I tried “Turn Right” and “Turn Left” (and their according stops) but the engine has a little bit of lag waiting for you to continue that you end up spinning too much and it’s all-too-often imprecise.
I quickly added other commands like “Map” to show the map, “Mount” to summon my Felsteed, and “Shadowbolt” and “Immolate” for those corresponding attacks. Several quests later, I was tired, and went to sleep. I woke up with a sore as HELL jaw. Took 4 days and many a icepack to heal. Also: my cheek very dry from all the condensation water from the icepacks taking out my natural oils.
Long story short: Moderation is key, I think I’ll still use the voice recognition stuff to improve my comic making workflow, but other than that, little to none.
Long story even short: OW! Just EFFING OW!
