Nuance Unveils Dragon Dictate for Mac 3
Nuance has released Dragon Dictate for Mac 3, which comes with several new features and 15 percent greater accuracy than Version 2.5.
"This is a significant release for us," says Peter Mahoney, chief marketing officer for Nuance and senior vice president and general manager at Dragon. "We've taken the latest core technology that is in Dragon 12 and integrated the speech engine into the Mac product. We're also adding new capabilities to the Mac product that haven't been there before."
One product improvement is the correction process, which is featured in Dragon 12 but which is "a big leap forward" in Mac 3, says Mahoney.
With its revamped correction process, Dragon Dictate now allows users to use speech to correct individual words or phrases through a single, easy-to-understand window that lets them select alternate word choices, or spell and train new words.
"It used to be that you corrected a word at the utterance level, and now you can select individual words," says Mahoney.
Dragon Dictate Mac 3 also provides an Express Editor so that users can dictate into a text field that does not have Full Text Control. After dictating, the user can transfer the text from the Express Editor to the desired application quickly by voice.
Dragon Dictate also now further adapts to the way people speak with Smart Format Rules, which customizes and personalizes every user's Dragon Dictate experience. Dragon Dictate now detects formatting changes such as abbreviations, numbers, and more, so that dictated text appears the way users may prefer.
Another new feature is support for wideband Bluetooth, which allows users to get a clearer audio signal, resulting in better accuracy in a wireless mode. Dragon Dictate now features support for 16kHz wideband Bluetooth wireless headset microphones, allowing for even further increased accuracy for Bluetooth headset users through a higher-quality audio signal. When Dragon detects that a certified microphone is paired with the Mac, Dragon offers "Enhanced Bluetooth" as an audio source type. The improved audio quality eliminates the requirement for Bluetooth users to do initial voice training, allowing them to get started faster than before.
By establishing a user profile for a digital voice recorder, Dragon Dictate is able to transcribe recorded audio files. Dragon Dictate for Mac supports .wav, .m4a, .m4v, .mp4, .aif, and .aiff audio file formats, as well as any recorded notes using the free Dragon Recorder app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch (4th gen).
In addition to general support for Mac OS X Mountain Lion, Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 offers built-in commands for the new Notes and Reminders applications in this latest OS release.
Many of the improvements in the new product came from user feedback.
"We've got a very active community in social media, and that's the primary source of these features that we've added," Mahoney says. "We also have been looking at features that have been popular in our Windows product. such as the file transcription capability that's on our premium product in the Windows world."
Dragon Dictate for Mac 3 is available for pre-order immediately starting at $199.99 through Nuance's Web site as well as through reseller partners, software retailers, and professional sales organizations. It will be available to purchase as a download beginning on September 13. All other orders will begin shipping the week of September 24.
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