Dragon Systems Inc set the newswires alight this week when the Newton, Massachusetts company launched the $9,000 speech-activated DragonDictate Voice-Typewriter which once trained to the speaker’s voice can recognise 30,000 words: it consists of personal computer software and a speech-recognition circuit board, enables users to create memos, manuscripts and other documents by speaking into a microphone and puts text up on the screen at the rate of 35 words a minute; a mistake is corrected by saying oops and repeating the correct word; functions can be operated manually as well, and to turn off the system, the command is Voice Console: Go to Sleep; to turn it back on, the command isVoice Console: Wake Up; it requires an 80386-based MS-DOS box.
