Sadhana,

I can only answer in relation to ViaVoice.

There has been no further developments since July 2004, when the last edition of ViaVoice 10.5 was produced. However it has not lost any of its functionality, and is still a very functional speech recognition program, as it always was. The latest version, which you can still get, is cheaper, and has much better functionality, than DNS Preferred 9.5.

To get the equivalent functionality in DNS, one would have to purchase DNS Pro 9.5, which is in the region of $800; or alternatively purchase DNS Preferred 9.5, (approx. $250) and add Vocola which is free, into which you can programme navigation macros.

The advantage of VV is that its macros can be used out of the box, and it is very easy to create your own.

Further you may still have your ViaVoice speech files, in which case you can probably put them into VV 10.5 (depending on what original edition you had).

It would appear that ViaVoice may not work in Windows Vista.
Quentin

1. ViaVoice as a desktop program is dead -- but still flailing in its death throes Its recognition soul lives on in transubstantiated forms, e.g., speech controlled GPS for automobiles, etc.

2. Depends on your requirements. Its English version is now better than VV ever was given constant improvements. For multi-lingual use, its currently the best available option, although Vista SR is moving towards multi-lingual capability. N.b., however, switching languages remains a kludgy, impractical process in Vista. Whether VV is still available in languages other than English is moot -- maybe a VV specialist can advise.

3. DNS offers German, but I'm not sure about Portuguese. Other translators report that Nuance does not seem responsive to their needs in relationship to simple, user-friendly installation and maintenance. Possibly the market is too small to motivate Nuance.

Bruce

"3. Does speech recognition with Dragon and/or other similar programs involve only English, or also other languages, such as German and Portuguese,speech recording/transcription ?"

Dragon NaturallySpeaking supports languages other than English, and the non-English versions include full English language files. The Dutch offers several languages, it's the only one that does.

Here are the Nuance pages on NaturallySpeaking, ViaVoice, and languages (neither offers Portugese)

http://www.nuance.com/international/

http://www.nuance.com/viavoice/international/

Judy

I'm a full-time translator who's been using Dragon since v. 2.0. I work into English only, so I can't comment on the accuracy of Dragon in other environments, but I can't imagine working without it. I do a lot of medical and pharmaceutical work and find that the ordinary Preferred version can handle anything I can throw at it. Performance with pharmaceutical names, anatomical terms and organic chemistry is excellent. I can routinely cruise along at about 1000 words per hour with about two errors per page. Take your per-word rate and do the math.

I am dictating this as I go and I'm just going to open Taber's medical dictionary and take a word at random like hippocampal. Maculation. Stress fracture. Streptococcus. Pertussis. Popliteal. Arachnophobia. Epididymis. At the Kansas -- epicanthus. Had to repeat that one. You get the idea.

Dragon isn't perfect, but it's a whole lot better than pounding a keyboard. And it pays for itself in about an hour.

Yes, I'm running version 9.5 of the Preferred DNS. I upgraded from v. 8.0 to 9.0 and then when I moved to MS Office 2007 from 2003, I had to download and install the DNS 9.5 service pack. No problems. DNS 9.5 works fine with MS Word 2007 and everything else I've tried it with.

It may take a while to get used to dictating translations. Some people seem to have more difficulty than others. It's just like doing viva voce translation (reading text aloud in a different language), which I do pretty often when I review docs in patent cases. Once you get started it's ridiculously easy.

Good luck!

Dan