Software review

Created: June, 2000

IBM ViaVoice Millennium Edition 1.0 for Mac

By Terry Fong, Cyberwalker Media Syndicate

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In a time travel scene from the movie Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Scotty assumes a computer mouse is a microphone and tries to use it to talk to a 20th century Macintosh.

Unlike the computer on board the Enterprise, however, 1986 Mac programs were incapable of understanding human speech -- so the assumption made by Star Trek fans' favorite chief engineer sent movie audiences into paroxysms of laughter.

It has taken another 14 years and a product from a most un-Mac-like software company for reality to catch up with Scotty's fictional expectation, as IBM releases ViaVoice, a simple-to-use speech dictation program for the Mac.

ViaVoice is very easy to install, although it requires certain extensions that not everyone may have installed with their Mac OS. The Andrea NC-71 that is included is also a very nice microphone, although the first one tested decided to give up the ghost midway through a training session.

Once installed, ViaVoice needs to be "trained" by building a voice model. This involves reading one or more prepared texts to the program. Accuracy of the voice model and the capability of speech recognition increases with the amount of training.

It can be exhausting to constantly correct your speech patterns. ViaVoice seemed to have a particular problem with this reviewer's contractions. Speakers who use a sibilant "s" will have an entertaining time with training this program.

Also, unlike many programs, one cannot simply "guess" what commands can be used or will be useful. It is very important to read the documentation. You will refer to the included command summary often.
Once trained, ViaVoice's main application, SpeakPad, can be used to produce text. This is a proprietary word processor that allows text formatting, editing and cursor control capabilities to be controlled through speech.

Incorrectly recognized words can be corrected, improving the user's voice model. Paradoxically, ViaVoice will often get long, difficult sentences exactly right -- yet fail with a mundane sentence.
SpeakPad can transfer selected text into a variety of common applications, including Netscape, Outlook, Microsoft Word, AppleWorks, and America Online software. For example, transferring the selected text into Netscape will open a message window with the text already pasted into the body. Unfortunately, the subject line and e-mail address still must be typed in.

ViaVoice can be used with American Online software version 4.0 in the same way as it is used with Netscape. You can dictate messages in chat rooms, send instant messages, compose e-mail messages or even navigate. To navigate, you just say out loud the name of an item you see on a menu list or button. To see an e-mail, for example, you would say "read." To see your address book, you would say "address book."
How well does ViaVoice recognize speech? Quite well, once the program has been programmed with a user's voice. The slower the speech and the more clearly enunciated words are, the better the program is at recognizing words.

Judge for yourself. The next paragraph was dictated after training ViaVoice for two hours and practicing with it for about an hour. Correct text in parentheses follows incorrect words when the program erred.
"Natural speech technology has come a long way, but still has a way to go before it can catch up to start treks (Star Trek's) voice recognition abilities. A lot of time still fast (has) dispensed (to be spent) training the program to reduce (produce) useful work. However, once one has become used to the idiosyncrasies of both the program and of one's own speech, the possibilities are certainly breathtaking."

Speech recognition programs still do not easily compensate for all speech patterns. As you can see from the dictation sample above, this program trips over simple words more often than it does over difficult ones. But ViaVoice demonstrates that much progress has been made. When it works, it works surprisingly well. And there is certain exhilaration in talking to your computer.

Reviewer's rating: 3.75 / 5

Comments: IBM's ViaVoice fills a significant void in voice-recognition applications for the Macintosh. Those who can't or don't like to type and need to produce a large amount of text should give ViaVoice a try.

System requirements: iMac, Power Mac G3 and G4, PowerBook G3 (Power Mac G3 and PowerBook G3 systems introduced in August 1998 or later); Mac OS 8.5.1, or higher; 233 MHz processor; 48 MB RAM; 200 MB available hard disk space; CD-ROM drive; audio input jack compatible with Andrea NC-71 microphone.

More info: http://www-4.ibm.com/software/speech/mac/

Price: $70 US, $130 Canadian