Voice Recognition Review: MacSpeech Dictate and RevoLabs xTag Wireless Microphone
Tomasz Stasiuk May 13th, 2008
I recently added MacSpeech Dictate, a voice recognition software package for Macs to my technology arsenal. Many readers may be familiar with NaturallySpeaking, a robust voice recognition software package for PCs. I was previously a NaturallySpeaking user, before switching to the Mac. If you are a PC user, NaturallySpeaking Preferred, is a great program for dictating and controlling your computer.
Unfortunately, if you were a Mac user, the voice recognition software options were not as good.
Many users continued to use NaturallySpeaking on a Mac through various workarounds; either through Boot Camp (which allows you to run Windows directly on Apple hardware), or by virtualizing a Windows machine via a program such as Parallels or VMWare Fusion. The advantage to virtualization is that you could run both operating systems, Mac OS X. and Windows (XP or Vista) side-by-side. But, the dictation was limited to the Windows side: you could not select a Macintosh window, and dictate into it when you were virtualizing NaturallySpeaking.
My, how times have changed. MacSpeech has recently released Dictate, a voice recognition software package utilizing the NaturallySpeaking voice recognition engine. This is a native OSX program that finally lets Mac users easily experience what Windows users have had for years.
I am currently using it to write this post and a Revolabs xTag wireless microphone. The xTag is a is a two-piece unit (microphone and base) which attaches to your computer through USB. the base is approximately the size of a box of Altoids mints, though a bit taller. The microphone, is about the size of a tube of lipstick, and can either be clipped to your shirt, or worn with a lanyard (included). The xTag also includes a ear loop speaker with a cable that can be attached to the wireless microphone. This can be useful for VOIP applications, such as Skype, as you can channel sound to the ear loop rather than through to your computer speakers (which might otherwise get picked up by the microphone).
The xTag can either be purchased separately for approximately $249, or directly from MacSpeech when purchasing Dictate. if you buy both dictate and the xTag microphone together, you save approximately $100 compare to what you would pay if you buy them separately.
The voice recognition is really very good. And it is wonderful not to be tied down to the computer by a cable, or have a headset strapped to your head. Regarding battery life, I have had no problem keeping the microphone active (though not dictating the whole time) for six or more hours.
One nice surprise was being able to dictate into Windows XP programs running virtualized through VM Ware Fusion. Presumably, this would also work with programs virtualized using Parallels. I can dictate into both Mac or PC applications just using MacSpeech Dictate.
However, if you’re coming to voice recognition from NaturallySpeaking, you may feel that MacSpeech Dictate has one hand tied behind its back. Continue Reading »
