Typing or voice recognition - which do you prefer?

Even if voice recognition was perfect, I would still prefer typing. I suffer from insomnia, and so I do most of my work late at night. Because of this, those around me are typically sleeping. If I had to talk to my computer to get a report finished and so on, then I'd always be waking people up. As far as cell phones go, if the voice recognition was perfect, I'd certainly prefer that. But for computers, I'll go typing every time.

No, typing or transcribing by hands cannot be compared with speech recognition software. Normal speech is filled with hesitations, repetitions, changes of subject in the middle of an utterance, speedy voice, cough, sneezing, slips of the tongue, etc. Speech recognition has many many limitations as follows: 1. SR will never correct dictation errors. Improper grammar, incomplete or or disorganized dictation, and incorrect punctuation. Speech recognized text (SRT) will never correct false separation of sentences. It will usually get homophones, like "to", "too", and "two", wrong. 2. SR will type out any noise also. Speech is uttered in an environment of sounds, a clock ticking, a computer humming,a radio playing somewhere down the corridor, another human speaker in the background, coughing, sneezing etc. If there is echoing of your sound, there will be phenomenon called reverberation which will affect the output of speech recognition badly. 3. Spoken versus written communication. Written communication is usually a one-way communication, where as speech is dialogue-oriented communication. Normal speech is filled with hesitations, repetitions, changes of subject in the middleof an utterance, slips of the tongue etc. A human typist usually does not even notice these disfluencies, but this kind of behavior has to be correct after speech recognition. 4. Speaker's style can change the output of Speech Recognized text. We speak differently when we are happy, sad, frustrated, stressed, disappointed, defensive, etc. We use to have different voice pitches and pattern at different emotional states which can create a visible difference between the meaning of text. Furthermore, tone of women’s voices is roughly two times higher than men's voice. 5. Wrong world selection by Speech Recognition Software. Sometimes, we can not even decide which of a set of words is actually intended. This is the main problem in all computer-related language application-- the homophones. check these examples: The tail of a dog -- the tale of a dog. The sail of a boat -- the sale of a boat. and also: I will kill you with my bear hands -- I will kill you with my bare hands. It's my daily job to edit speech-recognized text as an Registered Medical Transcriptionist... There is a lot to share...but I would like to conclude with the example below: It’s not easy to wreck a nice beach. It’s not easy to wreck an ice beach. It’s not easy to recognize speech.

I have a PC. I'm a Trekkie so the idea of a voice activated computer is a cool thought. I've tried the software and it had a had time understanding my voice. I never could get it to work. Of course...the software is probably more advanced now. Besides...I really like typing.

I prefer typing thank you. If I have to talk to a computer how long until they start talking back!Do the words 2001 a Space Odyssey mean anything to you?

I would any day prefer voice recognition over typing. But currently the quality of the voice recognition software is not great. So till they can scale up, I think we are stuck to typing. I do have a fantastic typing speed, so on the speed front I do not see any major issues. But what I would benefit from it is the fact that I can give my hands a complete rest during the period I am with my computer. Cheers! Ram

I actually prefer both. It just depends on how and when I will use it. I prefer the voice recognition when I am so lazy to type and if I feel tired from too much typing. I will use it if I'm alone. I will use the keyboard if I am in a hurry, typing it is faster for me than saying it. I will also use it than voice recognition if I am not alone and I don't want anyone else to hear what I'm saying.

If at all voice recognition works just perfect I would always choose that. But currently there are many technological constraints for voice recognition. For examples A computer cannot recognize homophones correctly. But still voice recognition can be made a reality in a long way to come. The software should be capable of using the right homophone word by decoding the sentence which is currently a lot complicated to implement. So for now I would settle down with typing. One can use short words ti make typing a bit faster.

I sort of like both. The thing is with voice recognition it would help when I am writing a novel and have to do something else around the house. Some parts of the novel require action and it is easy to pretend to be the hero or heroine. However the danger is that I would have to be close to the computer and also to remember to say the comma, period, etc. Of course if I am writing non-fiction I would prefer to sit at the computer. And of course, I would have to make sure no one was around when I used the voice recognition software.

I haven't tried to use the Siri, so that I don't know how well for its voice recognition. I prefer to type since I tried some voice recognition softwares before and they don't really work perfectly. Besides, so far Siri doesn't support Chinese, so it will be difficult for me to try English. I love China

I was watching a commercial on tv for the voice recognition software. It looks interesting. But I was thinking what about in offices where there are cupicles and people all around you basically. I for one wouldn't want people hearing what i am typing. And, in the case of competition and so forth. What about that? So, I think personally, at home, maybe this is a good deal but for big business not so much.

I enjoy typing and the reason for that is I can actually type using all my fingers. I would probably focus on the voice recognition though if I was only able to type using two fingers as typing would then take forever to write just one page of text. There's some good voice recognition software out there and I believe that Dragon is highly recommended. When typing a lot there is always the potential risk of suffering from RSI repetitive strain injury but the important thing is to take regular breaks away from the computer and give the fingers and wrists a good rest. For now I will always favour typing above voice recognition. Andrew

Well, I'd accept voice recognition software but I'd like to keep typing too. I think voice recognition can be used as a new tool to enhance writing, although it can't know how will increase the use of that software. Think only how it has spreaded the use of the computer around the world and almost nobody write a letter like before, that's using a pen, a paper, an envelope and then go to the post office to send that letter. Due to the technology, many things are changing all the time and we are so used to, that we maybe are not more aware from it.

I like typing, I dont like voice recognition as it often makes mistakes, so I vote for typing