[games_access] Best Speech to Text Software?

[Tim Chase]

> In the meantime...I have never had much success with Dragon Dictate 
> -- any other speech to text recommendations? I don't have any fine 
> motor control so mouth sticks, etc are completely out for me until 
> the antibiotic starts kicking in and the pain starts letting up.

 From my experience with several speech-to-text packages 
(granted, this was a number of years ago, so I'm certain that 
technology hasn't stood still), Dragon holds the prestigious 
distinction of "sucks least".  I think the packaging brags 
something like 95-98% accuracy-rate which sounds great until you 
realize how important 2-5% of your speech is :)

Going through their speech-trainings can help improve the 
accuracy, but sadly it still won't reach 100%

One option that did occur to me is the "Dasher" project[1] which 
is a great alternative to traditional input for text.  There's an 
impressive talk/demonstration on YouTube[2] from one of the 
Google Tech Talks.  I'm not sure what your mobility limitations 
are (you mention "don't have any fine motor control"), but since 
the package is free, it would merely set you back the time to 
download/install it.  It should have downloads available for 
Windows & Mac; and in my Debian Linux software repository, 
installation is just a click away in Synaptic (or an apt-get away 
from a command-line).  It may be controllable via gross torso 
movements rather than fine hand/wrist movements.

Hope this gives you some ideas to overcome the nettling input 
difficulties.

-tim

[1]
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

[2]
http://youtube.com/watch?v=wpOxbesRNBc