Nick Demos wrote:

> 1.  Voice recognition is not a translation, but just what it says -
>     Recognizing words.
>
> 2.  of course there are hononyms (words that sound the same).  There
>     come to mind two techniques that ameliorate this problem:
>     A.  A selection process which appears on the screen for
>     an unregnized or ambiguous word - the user either selects an
>     alternative or types in a word.

An interesting converse is when the computer performs text-to-speech
and it encounters homonyms. Surprisingly, the Macintosh speaks the
following example correctly:

        "Thank you for the present. I will present it to John tomorrow."

>     B.  The computer remembers this and presents this word at the
>     top of the selection the next time the same sound is heard.
>
> 3.  There would have to some escape word/sound so that the computer
>     would treat the following word as a command rather than as a
>     text word.  This might also be accomplshed by holding a key
>     down.
>
> In summary voice recognition at the start could be very useful even
> if not perfect and once widely used this use would fund improvements.

A great article appeared two years ago in Macworld magazine about this.
The writer, David Pogue, describes his painful introduction to RSI, and
his efforts to work around it.

At the time (August 1995), the program he settled on (Power Secretary)
was owned by Articulate Systems; it has since been bought by Dragon Systems.

Fast forward to January 1997. In responding to a reader's query about
the product, he says

        "This product will absolutely change your life."


To find both the original article and the response to the reader (since
the individual URLs are miles long), go to

        <http://www.macworld.com/search.html>

and enter "power secretary" (no quotes) in the search box. Be sure to click
on the button for "1995" before beginning the search (by default, it is NOT
scanned).

The original article is result #2 (Look, Mac--No Hands!).
The response to the reader is #4 (Macworld Letters).

--Glenn Cole
  Software al dente, Inc.
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