Dragon Dictation 2.0 Released for the iPad

One of the truly marvelous apps for the iPad has to be Dragon Dictate from Nuance. I have been using Dragon Dictate since I got my iPad and it is hard to believe how accurate it is for transcribing your voice to text. What is more amazing is that there is no need to do any training of the sort. Using cloud based processing Nuance is able to capture your voice file process it in the cloud and return your transcription back to the application in seconds. If you have not tried it out on your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone you should definitely download it and give it a try- the price is right. Right now the app is free! Nuance just released version 2.0 of Dragon Dictate which now lets you quickly send your text to Facebook and Twitter from a small drop-down palette in the program. I tried out this feature just yesterday evening and it works like a charm.

Tools like Dragon Dictate open up all kinds of possibilities for students with learning disabilities and as I work with more and more students with writing disabilities I now have my iPad available to see how well it can work for them. I recently worked with a 6th grader who happened to be using an iPhone and we installed Dragon Dictate to see how well it would work. The beauty of Dragon Dictate is that there is no training involved. The student opened up Dragon Dictate on his iPhone and began to dictate and within seconds text appeared on the screen. I was amazed how accurate it was for this particular student. I have tried it with other students where the transcription was not that accurate. So if you have access to an iPhone or iPad give it a try when you are assessing students and see what happens. I would be interested in your experiences using Dragon Dictate 2.0 with the students you work with. It is incredible to think how far this technology has come in such a short amount of time and how we can harness this technology for the students we work with with learning disabilities.

Dictate for the Mac to Be Released Soon

One of the areas which Windows based computers really excelled was in speech recognition- but that could all be changing with the soon to be released Mac product called Dictate. MacSpeech and Nuance Communications, the developers of Dragon Naturally Speaking have teamed up to bring Dictate to the Mac with a whole new rewrite of the underlying speech engine. Dictate requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher, and requires Intel-based Macintosh hardware. Coming with your choice of headsets, Dictate will be priced starting at $199 and is expected to ship by February 15, 2008.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., January 15, 2008 - Macworld Conference and Expo 2008, Booth #607 – MacSpeech, Inc., the leading provider of speech recognition solutions for the Mac, and Nuance Communications (Nasdaq: NUAN), developers of Dragon® NaturallySpeaking®, today announced an agreement to bring the world's best speech recognition solution to Mac users worldwide.

MacSpeech, Inc. has licensed underlying dictation technology from Nuance Communications, Inc. for its new MacSpeech Dictate™ product (see today's related announcement).

"MacSpeech, Inc. is the authority on speech recognition for the Macintosh," explained Andrew Taylor, president and CEO of MacSpeech, Inc. "Nuance provides an exceptional dictation technology engine that lets us focus on what we do best, which is to provide the user experience Macintosh users expect. Nuance is a class organization with a best of breed technology, and frankly we're thrilled to work with them to bring great speech recognition software to the Mac."

"We are pleased to help MacSpeech provide a dictation solution, powered by Dragon NaturallySpeaking technology, to users that require a native Macintosh dictation application," explained Peter Mahoney, vice president and general manager of the desktop dictation business unit for Nuance Communications. "MacSpeech has intimate knowledge of the Macintosh platform and deep understanding of Macintosh users. This collaboration brings an unparalleled opportunity to provide the world's best dictation technology in a solution that is 100 percent Mac."

For the first time, MacSpeech, Inc. today began conducting live demonstrations of its upcoming MacSpeech Dictate product, powered by dictation technology from Nuance Communications, in Booth #607 on the Macworld Conference and Expo 2008 show floor.