• Manufacturing
• Laboratory reporting
• Data management
• Inventory control
• Quality assurance
• Order fulfillment
• Field data capture

An example of an industry where speech input is invaluable is food processing, where food handlers are required to record FDA information as they perform inspections. Keyboard data entry is impractical because using a keyboard while handling food product s would risk contamination. Speech input lets workers perform these tasks simultaneously without compromising health regulations.

Features and Benefits

• Frees users’ hands and eyes for other tasks. In situations where users need their hands or eyes to perform other tasks, speech input allows them to complete tasks while simultaneously inputting data.
• Simplifies computing for novice users. Voice commands are more natural and easier to remember than complex keystroke sequences. Speech input makes it easier to use computers, reducing training time and lowering training costs for new workers.
• Improves data entry speed and accuracy. Speech input can result in faster data entry with fewer errors when used instead of manual typing.
• Automates processes requiring instant data access. Speech recognition makes it easier to enter data on-line to improve the efficiency of automated processes. Because systems gain immediate access to statistical data, they can react more quickly to corre ct problems and speed throughput.
• Protects workers against repetitive stress injuries. By reducing the amount of typing required to run your application, you also reduce workers’ risk of developing Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI), the leading cause of work related injuries today. Speech input gives people with RSI an alternative to taking disability leave, and helps them continue to be productive employees.

Powerful capabilities for building voice interfaces

Developed by Dragon Systems, world leader in PC speech recognition, Dragon VoiceTools is a software developer’s kit that enables you to add a voice activated interface to your application.

Here’s how it works: A user speaks into a microphone attached to a sound card inside the computer. The card converts the sound into digital form. The Dragon Speech Driver, which handles voice processing and conversion, interprets the digital signal and compares it to all the words you have defined in your application. The Driver then determines which word was spoken and returns it to your application.

Dragon VoiceTools lets you incorporate speech recognition as the primary input source or as one source in a combination of input modes. It provides you with everything you need to build applications that recognize human speech as input.

DOS and Windows compatibility

Speech input can result in faster data entry with fewer errors when used instead of manual typing. you can integrate speech into your MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications.

Speech recognition with little or no user training

Dragon VoiceTools’ speaker-independent acoustic voice models for American English ensure that your application will recognize speech from practically anyone.

Speaker adaptation

You can add the capability to learn and adapt to each user’s voice for improved recognition accuracy.

Speaker-dependent speech recognition

Once the Speech Driver has adapted the voice models to a specific user, they become speaker-dependent. To accelerate this process, Dragon VoiceTools allows you to enroll the user to create speaker-dependent voice models.

Continuous speech for digits

You can program continuous speech recognition for digits. This feature is invaluable for speech input of zip codes, account numbers, social security numbers and telephone numbers.

Flexible interface

You can integrate speech recognition into any source code that can call C functions.

Library of C-function calls

Dragon VoiceTools contains all of the functions you need to control the Speech Driver’s powerful capabilities.

Dragon Speech Driver

For best performance, speech recognition functions are performed in a separate Speech Driver that resides in extended memory. The Driver controls:

Word Recognition. The Driver compares utterances against the application-specific vocabularies to determine which word was spoken.

Vocabularies. The Driver handles the total collection of words defined in an application, along with the word pronunciations and frequency information.

Microphone input. The Driver sets up communication channels between the speech driver and the microphone, and turns the microphone on and off.

Word adaptation. The Driver can build and adapt word models for the speech patterns of specific users.

User files. The Driver stores and updates acoustic information for words and phrases for each user.

Speech data collection. The Driver collects, saves and loads speech samples for training or recognition.

Developer-specified application vocabularies. Dragon VoiceTools lets you design the vocabularies for your application. The total vocabulary is limited to 10,000 words or phrases. Up to 1,000 words or phrases can be active at any time. You specify the words and phrases to be used within your application in an easy-to-read text format and compile it with Dragon VoiceTools Finite State Grammar Compiler.

In a large-vocabulary application, such as inventory control for an automobile parts store, you could easily divide the inventory into categories. Then you would define a different vocabulary state for each category, such as chassis parts, engine parts, and transmission parts. Each state could have up to 1,000 entries. For example, the vocabulary for the state engine parts might include fuel injector, distributor cap, alternator, timing belt and spark plug.

Flexible Speech Model Options. Dragon VoiceTools words by creating models of the sounds of human speech. You decide how to handle the speech models for your application, choosing one or any combination of these approaches: