I’m testing the Dragon dictation speech recognition software on Sunday, 25 July 2010 at 1.00 p.m. in the afternoon on my iPad. The first results appear to be completely successful. I had decided to approach this as a testing and software analysis exercise, but already I’m so completely amazed at the accuracy of the software that this review may quickly dissolve into a series of exclamations about how good it is!

I began sitting in my armchair, but the next moment I was standing, walking & moving into another room, switching fluidly between speaking, typing and editing on the virtual keyboard. Eureka! A gift has arrived. Thank you Dragon Dictate!

Combined with the iPads interface and its touch sensitive screen, recording my voice with Dragon software is simply easy. It’s one button software, with minimal icons, one of which is a little white keyboard icon at the base of the screen. This allows me to switch quickly into editing mode. From there it’s a simple matter to add or subtract to/from the text. It’s miraculously easy. It works! It’s a vision of a more convenient future. One where I don’t have to physically type every single thing I want expressed. One where I can simply open my mouth, speak, and edit later. Or even, switch fluidly between the two.

My thoughts are being electronically recorded & edited at a speed not a hundred seconds away from where I’m having them. Captured by a machine, effortlessly to a flat LCD screen connected via Wi-Fi to the ever thousand eyes, minds and beating hearts of the Internet audience. For someone who normally finds the physical aspect of typing time-consuming, RSI inducing and a tad frustrating, it’s deeply heartening progress. I have hoped for something like this for a very long time. Ever since I spent weeks trying to train MacSpeech to recognize anything I was saying about 4 years ago.

I’ve seen so many failures in the area of affordable and practical speech-recognition software. To be presented with something more or less representative of what I have spoken moments before, requiring minimal effort to correct, allowing me a free reign in the editing process and which does a seemingly capable job of understanding almost every spoken utterance is to to me both a little thrilling and amazing. This could be a boon to many types of people and even a lifeline to a few others.

In this technological age it is perhaps not ordinary anymore to simply wonder at sheer incredibility of the technology we are now using. In the West we have begun to feign indifference to its marvels, despite the fact that it is doing some amazing things. This my friends is one of them. Yes it has a few flaws, it even crashes once in a while. Yet it is mostly practical, useable speech-recognition on a portable device that costs less than £500. Congratulations to all of the programmers and developers at Dragon dictation you have produced a wonderful little piece of software .I hope this is just the start and we can finally begin to see speech recognition as simply another tool we use to communicate our thoughts.

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Set in NYC, the show follows the adventures of the hapless band as they attempt to break America. The humor is deceptively simple, deadpan and  low-key. Living in a rundown New York apartment, with a solitary fan, Mel (Kristen Schaal), who spends all her time stalking and obsessing over them, the Concord’s are managed (part-time) by the clueless and hilariously ineffective Murray (wonderfully played by Rhys Darby). Murray works as a tourism official at the New Zealand consulate and it’s here that many of the band’s meetings take place. The interchanges between the duo and their manager provide some wonderfully silly moments.

The joy of the show comes from its clever marriage of wickedly funny satirical parody songs to a sharp sardonic script. The humor is subtle, clever and at times hilariously absurd.There’s so much to enjoy about it all. From the clever parodies (rock, rap, reggae, 80′s pop), to the deadpan exchanges between the band and their manager, but rather than spoil surprises, I suggest you check it out for yourself. You might like to start with this selection of clips on their YouTube channel.

“Flight of the Conchords” begins airing (again) in the UK this April. It is currently available on DVD.

Links:

HBO Site

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