Rob's Rhapsody : Applications that use Microsoft Speech technology

A user authored guide to macros: WSRMacros: The User Guide

robch — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:23:39 GMT

Many of you know that we've been working on our Windows Speech Recognition Macros utility for a while now.

We released the first technical preview in April, a refresh in August/September, and we're continuing to refine the technology that will ultimately lead to a full release sometime soon.

One of the difficulties users have faced is good documentation for WSR Macros. We're working on completing our documentation and will include it with the product in the future, but we're not quite done yet.

But ... A macro enthusiast in the community has come to rescue for WSR Macros users.

Enter Brad Trott (from Marty Markoe's mymsspeech.com web site) and his latest efforts: WSRMacros: The User Guide.

WSRMacros: The User Guide is a 70 page electronic book chock full of insightful thoughts and ideas on how to use Windows Speech Recognition Macros.

If you're curious how to build powerful macros, and you have $9.95 to spare, it's likely well worth it to purchase your very own copy here.

You can also see other products mymsspeech.com offers for Windows Speech Recognition (including instructional videos, toolkits, voice recorders, and some of the best microphones you can find on the web) here.

Say2Go awarded 1st Prize in ISV/Software Solutions in Microsoft's 2008 Partner Contest

robch — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:08:49 GMT

Congratulations to Myro Mykhalchuk and his team at Say2Go for winning 1st Prize in Microsoft's 2008 Partner Contest for ISV/Software Solutions!

Say2Go allows users to do something they're calling "Voicing" between IM users. Voicing is more like voicemail than IM. Say2Go allows users to press and hold a button, speak what they want to say to another Say2Go user, release the button, and what they said will be sent to their buddy both as an audio clip, as well as transcribed using Microsoft's Speech technologies included in Windows Vista. Pretty cool stuff...

Interestingly, the good folks over at TechCrunch did a review of Say2Go (here) to which Nik at TechCrunchIT responded with his own discussion of "Will we ever bury Voice Recognition?" In that discussion, unfortunately, Nik used Microsoft speech technology that's almost 8 years old trying to ascertain the current state of the art. Whoops. Nik, you should really upgrade to Windows Vista and see if you have better luck.

If you haven't heard about Say2Go, you should check it out at http://www.Say2Go.com.

Dee Jay: A voice-controlled juke box for Windows Vista

robch — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 19:28:00 GMT

I stumbled across a new app on the net that uses the cool new recognition platform and recognizer included in Windows Vista. It's called Dee Jay and it was written by Martin L. Shoemaker from Inkon Software. I haven't downloaded it myself, but from it's description it sounds very cool.

Here's what Martin says you can do with it:

Here is a list of the Dee Jay commands. Note that you can change Dee Jay's name, so replace "Dee Jay" with your chosen name in these commands.

Dee Jay, Play MUSICKEY. Plays a song, an album, or a named collection. Replace MUSICKEY with a phrase that identifies a song. (See below for details on MUSICKEY.) If there are multiple matches for the MUSICKEY, Dee Jay lists them one at a time, giving you a chance to say "Play" (which also ends the list),"Back up", "Next", or "Cancel".
Dee Jay, Play Some MUSICEY. Dee Jay picks one song from the MUSICKEY at random.
Dee Jay, Play Any MUSICKEY. Same as Play Some.
Dee Jay, Play All MUSICKEY. Plays all songs from a MUSICKEY, in a random order.
Dee Jay, Add MUSICKEY. Adds a single song to the current playlist.
Dee Jay, Add Some MUSICEY. Dee Jay adds one song from the MUSICKEY at random to the current playlist.
Dee Jay, Add Any MUSICKEY. Same as Add Some.
Dee Jay, Add All MUSICKEY. Adds all songs from a MUSICKEY to the current playlist, in a random order.
Dee Jay, Pause. Pauses play.
Dee Jay, Resume. Resumes play.
Dee Jay, Next. Skips to the next song in the play list.
Dee Jay, Back. Jumps to the previous song in the play list.
Dee Jay, 5 Stars. Rates the current song as 5 stars. Other commands (of course) are 4 Stars, 3 Stars, 2 Stars, and 1 Star.
Dee Jay, Louder. Raise volume by 10%.
Dee Jay, Softer. Lower volume by 10%.
Dee Jay, Hush. Drop volume to 10%.
Dee Jay, Shout. Raise volume to 100%.
Dee Jay, About. Describe Dee Jay and its current version.
Dee Jay, Exit. Exit Dee Jay.
Dee Jay, Hello. Dee Jay greets you.
Dee Jay, Rescan. Looks for new music.
Dee Jay, What's playing? Identifies the current song.
Dee Jay, Rename NAME. Changes the name Dee Jay responds to. Replace NAME with your Dee Jay name.
Dee Jay, Reset Name. Changes the name back to Dee Jay.
Reset Name. Same as Dee Jay, Reset Name. I figured people might forget their Dee Jay name and need a way to default it.
Dee Jay, What can I say? Describes the commands.
Dee Jay, Help. Same as Dee Jay, What can I say?
What can I say? Same as Dee Jay, What can I say?
Help. Same as Dee Jay, What can I say?

My Exposé supports Windows Speech Recognition

robch — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 00:19:00 GMT

Simon Ferguel just released an update to his My Exposé application (similar to Exposé on the Mac). This version also includes support for Windows Speech Recognition using the built in Speech Recogntion capabilities of Windows... Neat. It's nice to see more and more people building Speech Recognition functionality right into their applications.

CNET video: StreetDeck in a Scion

robch — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 16:58:38 GMT

Here's a video of a decked out Scion that has an integrated Windows XP computer running StreetDeck software from MP3Car.com. This is the same software I run on my XP machine in my car, with my very own custom speech interface for playing media from my media collection.