Mac OSX Voice Control

[StitchJAcket]

I was recently messing around with my iMac when I saw that it has text to speech. So while I was diving into that I noticed that with Mac there is a voice control feature that actually works quite well. Basically it allows you to open applications and interact (to a level) with applications. For instance you could play a game of chess no hands required. Or ask for a telephone number and have the computer read it to you. I decided to dive a little more and found that there is actually a program like this for Ubuntu linux called Gnome_Voice_Control. So I gave it a whirl. While setup wasn't to hard they did have one error but a fix was already released for it. While the voice command actually works very well for things like closing applications or opening text editor, these were the only things I could actually do with it. According to the manual there is additional features I just couldn't get the application to calibrate my voice. So in short to Mac I say good job on creating what could very well be the first big leap into voice controlled desktop enviroments. :D

[handy]

Years ago I played around with some software in windows, which gave quite a lot of control via voice. I found it to be much slower than using my hands, apart from the hours spent training the software to recognize my voice.

I do think that effective voice control of a computer would have to be a blessing for people who are disabled to the extent that they can't use their hands. There would undoubtedly be some other specialized uses as well, though personally I think that at this stage at least, voice control of a computer is still a gimmick.

[Dojan5]

Gnome_Voice_Control
Any deb packages or SVN linkys?
DEB would be better since I have a broken CPU and can't compile anything :(

Vista voice control works quite well to me, until I changed Mic settings now it wont calibrate correctly...

[3rdalbum]

The Macintosh has actually had voice control inside the operating system for the last 15 years. I saw a demonstration of it in 1993 running on a Centris 660AV (25Mhz 68040 processor if I remember correctly). I used it for a little while in 1999 but it still made the computer run slowly, and the accuracy wasn't too good. You couldn't do much with it either - just launch programs from the Speakable Items folder, run some Finder commands ("Move this to the trash") and "Tell me a joke".

It's not so much that they've "taken the first step into voice-controlled desktop environments" as "they haven't done anything to it for years".

[Dojan5]

It's not so much that they've "taken the first step into voice-controlled desktop environments" as "they haven't done anything to it for years".
Can you add more speech functions in OS X then?
In Vista with WSR Macros you can, really neat actually.
Haven't tried Speech Recognition in older Macintosh systems. Didn't really know there was one...

I just couldn't get the application to calibrate my voice.
With a risk of going completely off topic, here's maybe a little something that might help with the calibration?
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-voice-control/+question/40773

[3rdalbum]

Can you add more speech functions in OS X then?

I haven't used the voice controls in OS X, but in the classic Mac OS you could write or record an Applescript to perform a certain task, and then put it into the Speakable Items folder. Of course, the program had to properly support Applescript in order for the idea to be useful.

EDIT: I tried installing Gnome-Voice-Control from repos, it wouldn't add to my panel. So I tried compiling the latest version from svn, and it STILL wouldn't add to my panel :-( Looks like I'll be waiting for Intrepid...