Improved speech recognition in Windows Vista

My colleagues from the Speech group have blogged rather extensively about Speech recognition in Vista (Robert Brown, Richard Sprague, Rob Chambers, see also the Windows Vista Speech Recognition Step by Step Guide …)

It’s interesting to read feedback from people outside of the company who tested the new feature. In a very recent article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm that covers Microsoft’s strategy and technology, Michael Cherry, an analyst from this magazine, read an English passage into different versions of Windows. His comparison of the 2001 version of Windows and of Vista shows where the recognition failed and where the text had to be manually corrected. It’s nice to see that he was impressed by the progress that had been made these last five years, and that, as he puts it, “Vista does offer substantially improved speech recognition support.” Follow this link to read about this comparison:

https://www.directionsonmicrosoft.com/sample/DOMIS/update/2006/11nov/1106vtwfmc_sb.htm

Better proofing tools in Office 2007 (support of the French, Dutch or German spelling reforms, a brand-new contextual speller, support for lesser-used languages such as Romansh and many others), improved speech recognition in Vista… This is only a small list of the kinds of linguistic issues that keep us awake from dawn to dusk (and often much later)… There is so much to do and so many difficult problems to solve. It’s undeniably good to read that we are making progress in this quest…

Thierry Fontenelle

Microsoft Natural Language Group