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Make your Mac's Speech Recognition work for you

lifehacker.com — Mac OS X comes with a pretty great Speech Recognition tool built-in, and, although it doesn't do all that much out-of-the-box, it's really easy to create your own speakable actions for virtually any application. Here is how (video included)

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 22, 2006

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  • elroyel1327, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12Back when I got my first Mac (7300/180) I set up a microphone on a shelf near the couch and had some speakers in the corners of the loungeroom of the share house that I was living in... because I thought that being able to yell "computer! what time is it?" and have it respond was cool. What I under estimated was just how often other people would want to know what the f**king time was too - In the end I pulled the speakers and mic down because I got sick of hearing "Computer!" being yelled every 2 minutes.

    I wonder if Picard had the same problem on the enterprise?
  • missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9While it may be easier for those of us with hands and sight to just use the mouse and keyboard, think about how much time it would save a disabled person if someone invested fifteen minutes worth of configuring and testing.
  • PathDaemon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8It does, but you're able to add more commands.
  • mikev, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This is really cool, but I'm not lonely enough to start talking to my computer..

    yet. ;)
  • prototypeangel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Speech recognition hasn't gained critical mass yet as to taking commands to operate the computer, those are best done by hand. cause you're ending up trying ten times to do a 5 second job after spending 15 mintues configuring and testing it. While using it to type letters out is bliss. Just that if I want to scroll down the page, I'd be better off using the scrollbar rather than actually say "move page down" 10 times. It seems fun, but we're all better off doing things with the mouse and keyboard.

    If you want real speed and productivity, use console tools in linux.
  • nlogax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all.
  • missflibbles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Come on. Do you mean to tell me I'm the only mac user who did this within a couple weeks of having the thing? By the way, it doesn't work if it's noisy at all, and forget controlling iTunes when the music is on. Believe me, I know.
  • krishenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3LOL. That was a funny story.
  • DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And your point is?

    Mac users have been able to do this since the AV macs and the first PowerPC macs in 1993.
  • Rigbymatt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2almost everything in that video could have been done with the keyboard, 3 times faster, without sounding as moronic.

    Speech is great for random tasks you might want to do when you're 6 feet away from your PC, a la star trek, but not while sitting at it.
  • HornyGoat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2like...
    Computer, show me pRon
  • Lordevin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have a similar speaker system set up and use it to control iTunes in the living room while the computer's in the bedroom. "Computer, Next song"
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have an iSight camera along with a SightFlex stand.
    http://www.geekculture.com/blurbs/reviews/sightFlex.html

    I have the SightFlex sitting on top of my Dual G5 desktop Mac with the camera turned sideways and positioned about 6 inches above my head like a boom microphone. I am almost always listening to podcasts or audio books while I am working at my computer and this setup works well for me.
  • macness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Speech Toggle at http://www.chimoosoft.com/speechtoggle.html is handy for toggling speech recognition on and off... Useful add on if you're going to play around with this.
  • Jedeye459, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Computer, finish my work! That will be the day.
  • MacParrot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Computer! Set "Reidtheweed" as TROLL!

    Damn it. Didn't set all the parameters...I'll get back to this later.
  • fleischner, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I built speech recognition (albeit the OS 9 version) into this:

    http://home.comcast.net/~mdf-1/

    Not *really* necessary, but was hoping for some "cool" factor.
  • JB1984, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Voice Recognition is just not where it is supposed to be yet. It is still quicker by hand. I am sure in about 2 years the technology will be explosive and will make everything so much easier!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0cool
  • dubyabee2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Quicksilver Forever!!!

    hmmm...I bet there is some dumb azz that built a QS plug-in for speech...sigh...

    nevermind...[dramatic pause]...Quicksilver Forever!!!
  • Reidtheweed01, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Yeah, ive only been doing this since Windows ME
  • gamemaster357, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4ill just say what we're all thinking....

    very useful if u can get it up and running
  • NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4You mean it doesn't "just work"?

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