MacSpeech, the Mac only speech recognition company, has released version 1.2.1 of iListen.
The iListen speech recognition software has “TalkAnywhere” technology, which lets you dictate into virtually any Mac application. It translates speech to typed text and characters anywhere you would normally type. iListen is speaker dependent, meaning you have to spend some time “training” iListen to the unique cadence and timbre of your voice. However, it can handle multiple users, each with their own speech files.
The primary benefit of version 1.2.1 is improved stability, according to MacSpeech. There are also fixes to various memory issues. Importing AppleScripts have been improved; iListen now correctly imports compiled AppleScripts; newly created Commands or Command sets are now saved and can be re-loaded correctly; and iListen 1.21 checks to make sure the built-in Apple microphone isn’t being used for Speech Recognition.
Registered iListen users can download the update now. iListen costs US$99 for the downloadable version or $109.95 for the CD version without a headset, and includes a free upgrade to the next version.
“Because of the increased stability, we strongly recommend everyone upgrade to this new version,” the MacSpeech Support Team said. “We are hard at work on both iDictate for Mac OS X and iListen version 1.3 for Mac OS 9.”
Designed as an introduction to speech as method for entering text into your Mac, iDicate is similar to MacSpeech’s iListen product, but lacks its command and control functions.