Still trying to recoup some of its vast 15 years worth of investment in speech recognition, IBM Corp added a $12,500 to $15,000 Windows NT on 200MHz Pentium MedSpeak/Radiology system that recognizes an appropriate 25,000-word vocabulary so that radiographers will be able to recite their findings from X-rays and scans direct into the computer with at least 95% accuracy on continuous speech. The release marks the first time IBM has offered a speech product that allows continuous speech; previously users had to stop between words. IBM also has a speech recognition modules for emergency medical staff, lawyers, and journalists, and its overall goal is to provide non-job-specific voice recognition software, as it has in OS/2 Warp, the operating system no one uses (CI No 2,900). OS/2 is supposed to have a vocabulary exceeding 1,000 words for normal speech and 10,000 for stop-n-start speech. Expect IBM to update its speech products in early 1997.
