KURZWEIL VOICEPAD SHAREWARE - Talk To Your Computer
Talking Technologies International Limited, the European distributor and Technical Support Centre, has released this limited version of the full commercial VoicePad product so that you can try out this exciting new technology - free.
I've included this text to introduce you to VoicePad, help you get started, and tell you where to buy Talking Technologies products. Why not print it out now.
WHAT IS VOICEPAD
You must have read about VoicePad in the newspapers or the computer mags. Or seen it on a shop shelf, or in a mail-order catalogue. Or watched it being demonstrated at a show. Or typing's just driving you crazy.
So, what is it exactly. This is what our brochure says about the full product:
VoicePad is seriously clever software. It looks just like the word processor that comes with Windows 95 - WordPad. But, forget the typing and chasing the mouse, it just listens to what you say, then does it. All you have to do is talk.
VoicePad prioritises 17 000 words you want to use, from its list of 200 000, and then lets you add 3 000 new words. As it listens to what you say, and the way you say it, it gets better and better, making your time with your computer more enjoyable, effective, and productive.
There's not much to learn because you already know how to say 'new-paragraph' and 'bold-on' and 'underline-off' and 'open-bracket' and ...
Anyway, as you talk, VoicePad thinks that you're typing and mousing really well. And with no spelling mistakes.
There's a green button which tells you that your microphone is ON. The Take window helps you correct mistakes. The Active Words window is a list of everything you can say - like a mini-manual on-screen. That's about it. It's so easy - even an adult can do it.
Do all the menus, create lots of text, make some changes, and then arrange it all, as you talk, to produce a finished document.
You can use it at home, school, or university, or in almost any type of work - medicine, engineering, finance, insurance ... anything where using normal everyday English seems like a good idea. And it's great for anyone with dyslexia, a disability, or RSI.
VoicePad lets you discover the excitement, simplicity, and efficiency, of 'just talking'.
VoicePad comes with a microphone and a simple manual. It takes about a minute to install from CD, and then you start talking. All you need is a 486/75 for Windows 3.11, a Pentium for Windows 95, 16MB RAM, and a Soundblaster 16.
Just post a cheque for ú92.83, which includes VAT and delivery, and VoicePad is yours.
INSTALLING THIS SHAREWARE VERSION
This version of VoicePad needs a Pentium, Windows 95, 16MB RAM, and a sound card. It may not work with a Cyrix or AMD processor, although the full version does. It will not work with 8MB RAM, in DOS, Windows 3.11, or NT, or on a MAC.
A few users have not been able to load the CD past 94%, although it works perfectly well on an adjacent similar computer. I do not have an answer for this, as it has been installed successfully by thousands, but it may be to do with other applications being open, disk partitions, or some other setup anomaly.
It should work with almost any Soundblaster 16 compatible sound card, and most high output electret microphones. A few sound cards are problematic and a good test is to try the Sound Recorder or Audio recorder applications that comes with Windows.
If VoicePad fails to work convincingly it will almost certainly be a sound card or microphone problem, or you're doing somethimng wrong.
If you don't have a suitable microphone, put a cheque for ú20, which includes VAT and delivery, in the post and ask for a 'Starter' microphone.
Call us if you experience any problems, or if you are using a Thinkpad or an Mwave card.
Alternatively, look up the Technical Support section on www.talk-systems.com.
WHAT TO DO
The on-screen microphone button should be grey and OFF. Click it, or press CTRL and ALT together. It should be green, and ON. Turn it ON and OFF a few times to practise, but don't do any talking just yet. Now make sure that it's OFF.
Always make sure that the mic is OFF unless you intend talking to VoicePad. It is very common for beginners to leave the mic ON whilst they read the manual, have a cappuccino, chat to a friend, or make a phone call.
Although you've probably made a start already, just read through this text and confirm that you have been doing the right thing.
THE SOUND LEVELS CHECK
Go to the VoicePad menu and select Sound Levels. At the beginning, when it's listening to the background noise, it doesn't want you to talk, so don't say anything until it prompts you. Do it now. When you've finished, turn the mic OFF.
Remember, background noise includes internal electronic noise so, even though you're in a quiet room, VoicePad will almost certainly show some background noise.
If your voice didn't register, you've probably got a sound card problem. If the background noise was more than about 25% start the check again, click on the Mike Gain button, and reduce it.
If you're not sure whether you're doing the right thing, click the Help button whilst doing the Sound Levels check.
When it seems OK, turn the mic OFF.
VOICEPAD
The Take window helps you correct mistakes. It will be empty unless you've already said something. The Active Words window is a list of everything you can say - like a mini-manual on-screen. Get used to looking in Active Words if you're not sure what to say.
SETTING UP VOICEPAD
Click the VoicePad menu and select Options. From Capitalization choose only Auto Spacing and Auto Cap On. From Preferences choose only Train Without Confirms, Overview Screen At Startup, Open Active Words, and Open Take. Click OK. Do It now.
BEFORE TALKING
If VoicePad makes a mistake, look in the Take window. If, for example, it mis-recognised 'hospital' and 'hospital' is the third selection, say, without pausing, 'take-three'.
If it is not in the Take window, say, without pausing, 'correct-that', or click on the Correct That button, and begin to type the letters 'h o s ...' into the new Correct That window until the word 'hospital' appears in the list. If it is the second selection, say, without pausing, 'take-two'.
If the mic is ON, don't talk whilst you're doing this unless you're clear about how to spell words by voice.
If YOU make a mistake, or just say the wrong thing, say, without pausing between the two words, 'delete-that'. This makes VoicePad 'forget' whatever you just said and whatever it just did.
I cannot stress enough that, if a word is mis-recognised, there are only three choices - take the correct word from the Take window, say 'correct-that', or say 'delete-that'.
Simply repeating the word (louder?) re-enforces the error and VoicePad, in trying to learn and please you, will get less and less accurate. From our experience this is the most common cause of mis-recognitions.
This correction mechanism is very important if VoicePad or you makes a mistake. Your care correcting errors, as they happen, will improve the recognition considerably.
Using the keyboard to delete a mis-recognised word does NOT correct the voice model for that word. It only removes it from the screen.
Check that the mic is OFF, and practice saying 'correct-that' and 'delete-that' as if they were single words. Do it now.
TALKING
Turn the mic ON, click the cursor in VoicePad, and, correcting if necessary, say the following short bit of text, one word at a time, pronouncing 'the' as 'thee':
The hospital management association decided to introduce technology to the magazine industry and the financial business
That'll do for now. Turn the mic OFF.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
If it didn't recognise most of the words, assuming that you remembered to make corrections, try again. Corrected words should be recognised next time around. Turn the mic ON.
Turn the mic OFF. If the recognition is still poor or patchy, it will almost certainly be a mic or sound card problem, so re-read this text from the beginning.
THINGS TO REMEMBER
To stop for a few minutes, you can say, without pausing, 'stop-listening' then 'listen-to-me'. Don't bother to do this now.
Remember to do a Sound Levels check occasionally (not just once at the beginning), and reset the microphone gain if necessary.
Use the words you will want to use at home or at work, in their normal context. There is no point in talking about Bo Peep or Little Miss Muffett unless you want to write children's books.
Correct as you talk - don't waste time going back. When you know what you're doing, click the VoicePad menu, select Current User, and Enroll. Subsequent recognition will be excellent. Do this later.
Make sure you speak normally, with a slight pause between words, and correct any mis-recognitions as they occur. VoicePad is very good at learning but you'll give it a hard time if you speak carelessly.
When you type you have to press the key - not just somewhere near it. When you say a word, make sure that you say the whole word - not just an approximation of it. VoicePad has no idea what you are talking about, nor is it interested, so it cannot fill in the missing bits like a friend will.
Generally, computers don't go wrong by themselves - they need your help.
TRAINING WORDS
To train a mis-recognised word, like 'correct-that', find it in Active Words.
Instead of scrolling up and down Active Words, you can just click anywhere in the Active Words word list and type 'c o r r ...' until 'correct-that' appears.
Click on it, and then click it with the right mouse button to get the pop-up menu. Select Train. If you do this now, with the word 'correct-that', turn the mic OFF afterwards.
To use VoicePad now, you must click back in VoicePad. Make sure the cursor is in the right place for subsequent words.
A few commands may appear in Active Words with red dots. This means that they are untrained and CANNOT be recognised until you have trained them.
BUYING THE FULL VERSION OF VOICEPAD
If you want to extend your trial beyond the several thousand word limit of the shareware version, you'll need the full version of VoicePad. It has a larger vocabulary, more editing and formatting capability as well as fonts, bullets, tabs ... so you can create a finished document. It comes with a lightweight headset.
VoicePad can be ordered directly from Talking Technologies. It costs ú79+VAT. Just put a cheque for ú92.83, which includes VAT and delivery, in the post, and VoicePad will be sent out for next day delivery.
KURZWEIL VOICE - YOUR NEXT STEP
Kurzweil Voice is the large vocabulary multi-application version. It works with almost any Windows program, so you can talk directly into Microsoft Word, Excel, Access, WordPerfect, Netscape, Email ... it's the full business version. To find out more, call us.
This is what our brochure says:
Voice is seriously clever software. It waits in the corner of your screen, listens to what you say, then does it. So you can give up typing and chasing the mouse. All you have to do is talk.
Voice knows at least 200 000 words, but will pick up anything new. As it listens to what you say, and the way you say it, it gets better and better, making your time with your computer more enjoyable, effective, and productive.
There's not much to learn because you already know how to say 'new paragraph' and 'underline word' and 'delete line' and 'open bracket' and ...
Anyway, as you talk, Voice lets the word processor, or whatever you're using, think that you're typing and mousing really well. And with no spelling mistakes.
One of the most popular uses is to talk directly into Microsoft Word. Do all the menus, create lots of text, and arrange it all as you talk, to produce a finished document.
Voice can easily work with other software or equipment to control your home environment, collect data, work a robot, translate to other languages, fill in a spreadsheet, help you with your email - almost anything that has a Windows interface.
You can talk directly to specialist applications for medicine, engineering, education, finance, insurance ... anything where using normal everyday English seems like a good idea.
It takes about a minute to install from CD and then you start talking. All you need is a Pentium with 16MB RAM, or better, a Soundblaster 16, and Windows.
If you can't get this organised, we'll do it all for you - a ready-to-go notebook or desktop delivered to your door.
Kurzweil Voice can be used as a stand-alone, off the network, or under a site licence. It doesn't change your computer so, if you ever need to, you can type and mouse as before.
Kurzweil Voice can be ordered directly from Talking Technologies. It costs ú299+VAT. Just put a cheque for ú351.33, which includes VAT and delivery, in the post and Kurzweil Voice will be sent out for next day delivery.
TALK FAST - THE ADD-ON
Now you're really going to get results - fast. Talk Fast is a valuable hardware, software, and support package - you've got a great new microphone, hundreds of extra things to say, unlimited phone, fax, email, and www technical support, and a comprehensive guide - the file talkfast.doc on the Talk Fast disk.
Although VoicePad and Kurzweil Voice comes with a 'getting started' microphone, if you're in a typical home or office environment with people talking, phones ringing, and the radio on, you'll need a top quality close-talk microphone.
You can write your own editing and formatting commands but, if you don't have time, the Talk Commands disk contains hundreds and hundreds of ready-to-use voice commands.
Talk Fast can be ordered directly from Talking Technologies. It costs ú79+VAT. Just put a cheque for ú92.83, which includes VAT and delivery, in the post, and Talk Fast will be sent out for next day delivery. Say whether it's for VoicePad or Kurzweil Voice.
TALK BACK - GIVE YOUR COMPUTER A VOICE
Talk Back is an entirely separate program. It gives your computer a voice. So that it can talk to you. It can read aloud almost any text from any Windows application program.
There's three small pink buttons, which you can position anywhere. They look just like the familiar Play, Stop, and Pause buttons, on your CD player.
Select some on-screen text, copy it using the Edit menu or CONTROL+C, and click on Play. Talk Back now talks to you - until you click Stop. Pause lets you adjust and test the voicing.
That's all you have to do. So there's no manual.
Talk Back has a bit of real time intelligence and tries to apply the linguistic rules inherrent in language, including punctuation, numbers, and sentence cadence. The voice quality is seriously impressive and represents a major advance in speech synthesis. So, why not:
listen to your emails whilst you do something else
help children with reading
try out presentations and speeches
listen to your letters as others may read them
sit back and rest your eyes
hear those long 'read me' files before you set up a new application
spell words - letter by letter
encourage people with language problems
lower the pitch if you're hard of hearing
develop language teaching programs
From an Options window you can choose exactly the type of voicing that you want:
Voice a range of voices, starting from a young child through to adults
Mode individual letters for spelling, words one at a time, or continuous
Language other languages will be added later as a Talk Back Plus package
Volume set the talking volume
Speed adjust the talking speed
Pitch change the general pitch of the voice
Talk Back includes a short piece of internal text, so that you can test the voicing. As soon as you like the way it sounds, click OK to close the Options, and Talk Back is ready to talk.
Just post a cheque for ú92.83, which includes VAT and delivery, and Talk Back is yours.
Talk Back comes on a CD. It will work with almost any compatible industry standard sound card. To use it simultaneously with VoicePad or Kurzweil Voice you must have a full duplex card.
FINDING OUT MORE
All our brochures are included on the Talking Technologies Web Project - www.talk-systems.com - so you needn't call us if you just want more information.
It includes a QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS section that deals with many of the things we get asked that need a comprehensive explanation.
There's also a TECHNICAL SUPPORT section so you can get 24 hour help.
TALKING TECHNOLOGIES
Talking Technologies is inventing the future. It's already easy to talk to computers, but talking with machinery, androids, and bio-technology, will soon be a natural dialogue.
Talking Technologies, formed in 1991, is a privately owned company. We led the research, development, beta-testing, and marketing, of voice systems under the popular brand name Talk Systems, attracting enviable media attention and creating valuable public awareness.
As the different recognition technologies developed, only Kurzweil provided a stable flexible modular voice recognition engine. Seeing its potential, we progressively abandoned other products and became the European Distributor and Technical Support centre for Kurzweil.
After a short development programme we won first prize at the International Innovation Show hosted by British Aerospace in 1994, demonstrating Talk Commands - our natural language command grammar - the voice-magic in Talk To Your Computer.
We designed a range of Talk Mics - military specification close-talk microphones - the first mics designed specifically for voice recognition. And they had a bit of style.
We presented Kurzweil Voice, by now an award-winning program, at over thirty national exhibitions, including Live, Windows, Comdex, MultiMedia, Voice, BETT, and CeBIT. We did more shows and got more press than all the other voice companies put together. Talk To Your Computer was now functionally valuable, not just technically interesting, and this led to enthusiastic media comment and commercial success.
We created Talk Back - a new low-cost technology that gives computers a voice, developed Talk International - automatic language translation, developed a clip-on lapel mic, and designed Reports On Call - a fully voice-enabled clinical auditing system - for The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. A World first.
We organised this cover CD shareware voice recognition program - VoicePad. A World first.
We launched VoicePad - real word-processing voice recognition for just ú79. Another World first. It was press-launched by The Leading Edge, in Harrods - the World's most famous shop, and is now available from stores, dealers, and catalogues all over the UK.
Everyone - children, students, universities, small businesses, banks, corporates, dyslexics, the disabled, charities, journalists, barristers, writers - can all use VoicePad Pro and Kurzweil Voice to increase their efficiency and productivity. And enjoy doing it.
Talking Technologies' world wide web, the first by a UK voice company, is a comprehensive resource for anyone interested in talking technologies and language engineering. It includes a downloadable demo version, a direct email link, and extensive 24 hour technical help.
We worked closely with computer manufacturers, so that users could buy Kurzweil Voice 'ready to go' on a high specification notebook. A World first. This was widely promoted in The Times - the World's best known newspaper.
VoicePad has just won the VFM award from one of the computer magazines.
We work with many of the best known software comnpanies, producing voice-enabled versions of their software.
We run a full development service and training programme for companies who want to move away from typing and support staff.
Our success ensures a commitment to technical excellence, nationwide training, life-time customer care, development support, and a full research programme - inventing the future.
