IBM ViaVoice was a range of language-specific continuous

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

products offered by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. The current version is designed primarily for use in embedded devices. The latest stable version of IBM Via Voice was 9.0 and was able to transfer text directly into

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...

. The most important process for the correct use of this software is the so-called 'quick training', and 'enrollment': it consists of reading many specific words and sentences in order to make the software adapt itself to the specific users' sound and intonation features. It lasts for one hour or more and can be divided in many parts. Users are able to improve decoding accuracy, by reading prepared texts of a few hundred sentences. The recorded data was used to tune the

acoustic model An acoustic model is used in automatic speech recognition to represent the relationship between an audio signal and the phonemes or other linguistic units that make up speech. The model is learned from a set of audio recordings and their correspon ...

to that specific user. In addition, user specific text files could be parsed to tune the language model. Correction of mis-recognised words was also used to improve subsequent decode accuracy.

Editions

Individual language editions may have different features, specifications, technical support, and microphone support. Some of the products or editions available are: * Advanced Edition, * Standard Edition, * Personal Edition, * ViaVoice for Mac OS X Edition, * Pro USB Edition, * Simple Dictation for Mac. The IBM Via Voice 98™ has been available in the Home, Office and Executive Edition in the following languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, UK English, US English. The Executive Edition allows you to dictate into most Windows applications and control them using your voice. Designed for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

, 98 and NT 4.0, it has been working very well with

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

. In the Executive package are included: * original software and user guide on

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

; * quality headset with microphone by Andrea Electronics Corporation™ with a converter plug for

Sound Blaster Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards and audio peripherals designed by Creative Technology, Creative Technology/Creative Labs of Singapore. The first Sound Blaster card was introduced in 1989. Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto stan ...

™

sound cards A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio i ...

and

ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop and Tablet computer, tablet computers produced since 1992. It was originally designed, created and manufactured by the American IBM, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. IBM Acquisit ...

™; * printed voice command reference card; *telephone support for one month.

History

Prior to the development of ViaVoice, IBM launched a product in 1993 named the IBM Personal Dictation System (later renamed to VoiceType) which ran on Windows,

AIX Aix or AIX may refer to: Computing * AIX, a line of IBM computer operating systems *Alternate index, for an IBM Virtual Storage Access Method key-sequenced data set * Athens Internet Exchange, a European Internet exchange point Places Belg ...

, and

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

. In 1997, ViaVoice was first introduced to the general public. Two years later, in 1999, IBM released a free of charge version of ViaVoice. In 2003, IBM awarded ScanSoft, which owned the competitive product

Dragon NaturallySpeaking Dragon NaturallySpeaking (also known as Dragon for PC, or DNS) is a speech recognition software package developed by Dragon Systems of Newton, Massachusetts, which was acquired in turn by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, Nuance Communication ...

, exclusive global distribution rights to ViaVoice Desktop products for Windows and

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

. Two years later,

Nuance Nuance may refer to: * Nuance (American band), 1980s dance music group * Nuance (Canadian band), 1980s pop rock group from Quebec * Nuance Communications Nuance Communications, Inc. is an American multinational computer software technology ...

merged with ScanSoft.

References

External links

* at

ViaVoice IBM ViaVoice was a range of language-specific continuous speech recognition software products offered by IBM. The current version is designed primarily for use in embedded devices. The latest stable version of IBM Via Voice was 9.0 and was able t ...

Speech recognition software 1997 software Products and services discontinued in 2005 Discontinued software {{multimedia-software-stub

Editions

History

See also

References

External links