Tag Archives: Speech Recognition

Two great uses for SR

I have found two great uses of speech recognition for telecommuters. But, before I tell you what they are, I’d like to give you some background on my experience with speech recognition software.

My SR Learning Experience

My typing speed varies between 80 and 150 wpm, depending on how much sleep I’ve had the previous night and my caffeine intake at that point in the day. The more caffeine, the slower my net speed due to the increased frequency of the backspace key–the most used key on my keyboard. As you can imagine, this speed was taking a toll on my wrists. Since my job required me to write a great deal, I found I was starting to experience some repetitive motion pain. Before the pain turned to injury, I decided to give speech recognition (SR) software a try. I had already tried an ergo keyboard, which helped, but being the geek I am, I wanted to try out something I felt could really fix my problem. I figured, why type at all, when the computer (theoretically) could do it for me! Continue reading →

Speech Recognition and Instant Messaging

I have been using speech recognition (SR) software for many years, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I discovered a fantastic use for it: Instant Messaging (IM).  Until I stumbled onto this combination, I had used SR primarily for transcribing handwritten notes or composing long reports. When I first tried SR with instant messaging, I was surprised by how effective it was. I could chat with someone for long stretches without ever touching the keyboard.  I could say things like, “have you reviewed the presentation for today’s meeting question mark enter key”, and my message would be sent. I found I could chat for many minutes like this without errors and without ever touching the keyboard. And, if I didn’t change window focus to work on another document, I could do this without even touching the mouse.

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