Nuance Releases Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5

Nuance Communications yesterday unveiled Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5, a new release of the its speech recognition software for the Mac.

Building on the improved accuracy, faster performance, and new voice commands introduced in Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.0, Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 adds new features that make it easier to create documents, send emails, surf the Web, share social status, and interact with many Mac applications. For the first time, Dragon Dictate users can combine dictation and voice commands with mouse and keyboard entry within Microsoft Word 2011, making it easier to create and edit documents.

Dragon Dictate 2.5 also takes advantage of the recently-introduced Dragon Remote Mic App, a free application on the Apple iOS app store that makes it possible to use an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a wireless microphone for Dragon via a Wi-Fi network connection. Many customers have requested to use their smartphones and other mobile devices with Dragon to have more flexibility with how and where they dictate with Dragon. The new Dragon Remote Mic App takes advantage of the nearly 200 million iOS devices in use today, and transforms the device into a wireless microphone that captures dictation and controls applications.

Dragon has quickly grown in popularity as a mobile application for the Apple iOS, and millions of people around the globe have downloaded Nuance's Dragon Dictation, which allows users to speak text for SMS text messages, emails, social media updates and more.

"We listened to feedback from our Mac-based Dragon customers, and heard a resounding request for more flexibility in how they can use Dragon," said Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager of the Dragon product line at Nuance. "People who have never tried Dragon Dictate before will be genuinely impressed with all the ways it lets you interact with your digital world. Those who are already familiar with Dragon will see some exciting improvements, like the ability to mix talking and typing in Word, added flexibility with microphones via the new Dragon Remote Mic App, and the ability to share social status."

New upgrades and features in Dragon Dictate 2.5 include the following:

• Full Control in More Applications – Dragon Dictate 2.5 allows users to seamlessly combine dictation with manual input from the mouse and keyboard while working with Microsoft Word 2011. This ability to mix talking and typing within Microsoft Word was the most requested product enhancement from Dragon Dictate customers. In addition, Dragon Dictate 2.5 offers built-in voice commands for Microsoft Word 2011 to format text, insert tables and graphics, and control many menu items by voice. Dragon Dictate 2.5 also works with other popular Mac applications: Apple's Pages, Mail, TextEdit, iChat, Keynote, iCal, Safari, and more.
• New Dragon Remote Mic App for iPhone – Turn your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad into a wireless microphone with the new Dragon Remote Mic App.
• Enhanced Commands and Social Features – Dragon Dictate includes built-in commands for many applications, including Apple Mail, Safari, TextEdit, iCal & iChat, In addition, Dragon Dictate collapses common multi-step tasks on the Mac into direct voice commands to search for files, post an update to Facebook or Twitter, search the Web for information, and more. Dragon Dictate 2.5 includes more commands to consolidate multiple mouse clicks and keystrokes into a direct voice command.
• Getting Started with Dragon is Faster and Easier – Dragon Dictate 2.0 made it easier to upgrade software by automatically detecting existing user data and setting up a new and improved profile with each upgrade. Dragon Dictate 2.5 includes more updates to the Voice Training component of user profile creation, and introduces new additional training text to help get the best recognition accuracy possible.
• Improved Formatting Control – With Dragon Dictate 2.5, new formatting options make it easier to control the appearance of certain words and numbers. Users have greater control over the way certain data is formatted. Individual preferences can be set for dates and time, numbers and units of measure, addresses, abbreviations, and more. In addition, with a new Numbers Mode, Dragon Dictate 2.5 can recognize everything it hears as a number or as a command, helping to boost recognition accuracy.
• Improved User Interface – With the new Auto Sleep Microphone feature in Dragon Dictate 2.5, if the microphone is on but does not receive input after one minute, it will automatically go into sleep mode. Users can set personal preference for the time allotted for the Auto Sleep microphone functionality.
• Improved Editing Control – Dragon Dictate 2.0 included new editing commands to select and delete text, insert new text, capitalize text, and more. Proofreading capabilities were added to Dragon Dictate 2.0 to leverage text-to-speech read-back for reviewing dictations. Dragon Dictate 2.0 even added a feature to enable users to put punctuation around words or groups of words with simple voice commands.

"The new features and improved performance of Dragon Dictate 2.5 represent an important step forward toward finally allowing dictation to become a serious alternative even to those that are proficient in speed typing," said Professor Michael Wolf, University of the Arts, Berlin. "Among one of the most important advances in this version is the ability to format dates, times and other numerals, as well as abbreviations and much more. The number of times that one needs to resort to the keyboard, even when dictating technical material, is rapidly approaching zero."

Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 is available immediately starting at $179.99 through Nuance's Web site as well as its global network of reseller partners, software retailers, and professional sales organizations. Dragon Dictate 2.5 is a free upgrade for current Dragon Dictate 2.0 users.