Nuance Adds Deep Learning to Dragon
Nuance Communications today introduced its new suite of Dragon professional productivity solutions for PC and Mac that leverage Nuance Deep Learning technology, which it says can deliver at least 24 percent greater accuracy.
The new Dragon releases include Dragon Professional Individual, version 15; Dragon Legal Individual, version 15; and, Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, version 6. They each feature dictation, transcription, and customization capabilities and sync vocabulary customizations and auto-texts with Nuance Dragon Anywhere, available separately, to extend the benefits of professional-grade speech recognition to mobile devices running iOS or Android.
With Deep Learning technology at the core of its speech engine, Dragon delivers an enhanced ability to learn individuals' voice patterns and accents and adapt to acoustics in open-office or mobile environments. This latest Dragon release marks the first time Deep Learning capabilities can run embedded on a personal computer leveraging a user's own speech data to improve their own language and acoustic model.
"Deep Learning is a powerful pattern-recognition technique inspired by the way the human brain learns and interprets sensory input, which Nuance has leveraged to advance accuracy across our speech recognition technologies, including Dragon," said Vlad Sejnoha, chief technology officer at Nuance Communications, in a statement. "Training such Deep Neural Net models typically requires large amounts of training data and a high-performance computing environment. However, our new Dragon portfolio includes our latest breakthrough that allows Dragon's Deep Neural Nets to continuously learn from the user's speech during use on a standard personal computer and drive accuracy rates in some instances up to 24 percent higher."
The new Dragon also brings with it advanced transcription, customization, and an improved ability to work with portable touchscreen PCs.
Dragon Professional Individual, version 15 delivers additional usability and performance enhancements, including the following:
- Optimization for popular touchscreen PCs;
- Formatting and other recognition improvements;
- Simplified set up and improved user interface;
- Enhanced support for recorded audio transcription, with streamlined setup and improved profile management;
- Expanded support, including full voice-driven editing, formatting, and command and control within popular desktop or Web applications for businesses; and
- Contextual guidance tailored to user behavior.
In addition to leveraging the robust feature set of Dragon Professional Individual, Dragon Legal Individual, version 15 for the PC is designed specifically for the legal industry. A specialized legal vocabulary trained using more than 400 million words from legal documents enables legal professionals to create and format case files, contracts, or briefs all by voice.
Dragon Professional Individual for Mac, version 6, enables professionals to dictate reports, spreadsheets, email, and other documentation, and now offers a transcription Batch Mode to save time transcribing multiple audio files. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac supports Full Text Control within the latest business applications. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac leverages Apple's Accessibility API to support Apple Pages, Apple Keynote, Apple Numbers, Microsoft Outlook 2016, and Scrivener, among others.
"Our customers are writers, and we are always looking for ways in which we can expand on the powerful tools available to them. We designed Scrivener to support any creative or professional workflow, whether building a meticulous outline, hammering out a draft, or referring to research, Scrivener's features are flexible enough to accommodate the writer's way of working. Dragon support takes this a step further, giving our users another way of getting their words down, allowing them to think out loud, quickly and easily dictating long-form notes and text right inside our app," said Keith Blount, founder of Scrivener, in a statement.
Additionally, Dragon Professional Individual, Dragon Legal Individual, and Dragon Individual Professional for Mac can be synchronized with the Dragon Anywhere mobile app for Android and iOS devices, enabling a powerful cross-device experience so that professionals can use the same vocabulary customizations and auto-text commands wherever they use Dragon.
"This latest suite of professional productivity solutions brings with it some of the most advanced capabilities to drive documentation productivity with higher accuracy, speed, and efficiency," said Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager of Dragon, in a statement. "Combined with Dragon's optimization for portable touchscreen PCs and the ability to sync with Dragon Anywhere, professionals are able to keep up with documentation demands from just about anywhere their business takes them."
Dragon Professional Individual will be available for download in English in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia for $300 on September 1. Physical product shipments will be available by mid-September. Dragon Professional Individual is available for $150 for users upgrading from Dragon Professional Individual, version 14, and Dragon Professional, versions 12 and higher, and for $200 for users upgrading from Dragon Premium, versions 12 and higher. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac will be available for download in English in the US, UK, and Australia for $300 on September 1, with special upgrade pricing of $150 for registered users of Dragon Dictate for Mac, versions 4 and higher. Dragon Legal Individual will be available in U.S. English from the Nuance Online store in the United States for $500.