Latest Dragon speech program is training-free

Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 does not need to be trained to recognise individual speakers

Nuance Communications has released version 9 of its speech recognition software, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, its first program that does not require voice training.

The need to train the software to recognise a particular user’s voice patterns is often regarded as a deterrent to uptake but Nuance said it has solved the problem by enabling high-quality dictation out of the box, although it said the program will still improve with usage.

“It’s the friendliest design ever,” said Simon Howard, Nuance productivity applications manager.

Nuance has also added support for Bluetooth and other wireless headsets and PDAs, and NaturallySpeaking will now work with almost any 32bit Windows app.

For firms rolling out the program, there are new deployment and admin tools, plus support for Citrix server-based environments.

Nuance claims up to 99 percent accuracy, though in a demo the software struggled with certain terms, rendering “IT” as “mighty” and “appears” as “and peers”.