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Software Operating Systems Windows Linux

Hands Free Computer Operation for Quadriplegics? 46

Posted by Cliff from the look-ma! dept.
Anonymous Coward asks: "Dragon Natural Speaking dropped hands free computer operation support back in version 3. My quadriplegic friend recently upgraded his computer and it came with Windows XP. His old Dragon Natural Speaking will not work on Windows XP. Does anyone know of any complete voice activated computer control for Windows XP or Linux?"
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Hands Free Computer Operation for Quadriplegics? More

Hands Free Computer Operation for Quadriplegics?

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  • I believe however that Mac OS X comes with this out of the box. Maybe ViaVoice still does handsfree on the PC.

    • Re:Nope (Score:3, Informative)

      by geoffspear ( 692508 )
      Mac OS X's speech recognition is kind of neat, but it's not really able to completely control your computer out of the box.

      However, it is pretty easy to extend by writing AppleScript that gets executed by voice command. I don't know that one could build a truly complete voice-controlled UI with what OS X includes, though. You'd at least need to add something like ViaVoice for speech-to-text, since Apple's speech recognition doesn't do that itself. In any event, building the AppleScripts to accomplish ev

  • Microsoft Speech SDK... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis@@@ubasics...com> on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:53PM (#7957026) Homepage Journal
    IIRC, the Microsoft Speech SDK [microsoft.com] has just such an example application which is fairly full featured. It should not be difficult to add more features to it if it is inadequate.

    Since it's free, you'll lose nothing except some hard drive space and download time (68MB) to try it out. It's been a year since I've last played with it, so YMMV.

    It probably doesn't plug into the accessability utility included in XP (press windows + U), but I imagine that there are some out there which do.

    Good luck!

    -Adam
    • It's interesting, and not very difficult to figure out. I played with it a couple years ago, and had some commands to open a web browser, read the time, etc. Entering "command mode" was triggered by saying "Computer" and the appropriate Star Trek sounds indicated the computer was ready to listen, and your command was acknowledged. ;-)

      Hint: turn off speech recognition if you make the computer say something, you can get a very odd type of feedback loop. You also need a good microphone if you want to talk to

  • Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:53PM (#7957038) Homepage Journal
    I'm sorry, I don't have an answer to your question, but I have one of my own. How is your parapelgic friend using the computer? I don't mean from an input kind of view, but rather, how is he using it to entertain himself? Is he doing it to pass time, or is he using it to learn, combination of the two?

    I'm asking simply from a curoisity point of view, not from a cynical "why bother?" PoV. Hope I don't come across that way. It seems to me that a person in that kind of situation could create a new life for themselves on the net. Just curious if this person has managed this. If so, I'd really like to know more about it. (note: these questions are open to anybody who has a paralyzed friend getting using a computer...)

    Sorry for being off-topic. I just get really curious when it comes to using technology to help people.
    • 10$ says he's using it for porn...
    • On the contrary: desired use of an application (or OS, in this case) is of paramount importance. The tech that would let the person play games is likely very different from that which would aid in word processing.

    • Re:Sorta off-topic, but I'd reaally like to know (Score:4, Interesting)

      by an_mo ( 175299 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @08:21PM (#7957817) Journal
      A friend of mine (35 years old) had a vein near the cerebellum blown off a couple of years ago (sorry I forgot the exact diagnosis). He is now semi-paralized. Speech is severely impaired (very hard for us to understand him), so voice recognition is not an option. Communication is slow and difficult (sometimes you have to go throug yes/no questions) but you can easily figure out that his brain is pretty much as sharp as before (he was a CPA). He can't walk, he can sort of move his arms but doesnt' have much control of his fingers, plus his arms sometime tremble a lot, so keyboard is also not an option. The best solution for him is an on-sreen mouse-activated keyboard.

      Bottom line, he was trying to use his pc but had difficulties typing with the trembling and all. With other friends we donated him a big monitor and I installed a monitor keyboard so that he can type with using the mouse). He can communicate with friends via the net, expressing arguments and sentences that would take hours for us to understand given the state of his speech. I know he also plays chess. I don't think he is going to create "a new life" on the net, as you put it, for the simple reason that he is not fast enough for IRC and i am not even sure that he is fast enough to post regularly in message forums/email (I think he gets tired after a while). However, it's better than nothing.
    • I have a parapeligic friend who was injured about 5 years ago just after getting his geological engineering degree. He was injured in a car accident with a moose so our provinces insurance is paying his living expenses.

      He went on to get an MBA from from our provincial university while serving as the Student Union's President for two terms.

      He was elected President of our Provincial opposition party and now is a nominated candidate for our federal opposition party and will run for Member of Parliament in

    • A lot of people with disabilities are liberated by the services on the net. Email liberates them via an alternate method for correspondence where they would normally have to send snail mail (go out, buy stamps and stationary and post it), a lot of disabled people do their grocery shopping online, their banking, bill paying, etc.

      At web accessibility conferences I find so many people with disabilities feel so incredibly liberated by computer technology. Most are just so thankful for it.

      They could compl

  • Some ideas (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kvorg ( 21076 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @06:56PM (#7957064)
    TBI Resources [tbiresources.com] seems a like a good list of resources and information in the field, and it suggests IBM's Via Voice [ibm.com] is an alternative. It's web site does not mention Linux and seems to be dictation-oriented, not general control.

    Perhaps some of the mailing lists (such as ViaVoice User's ML [yahoo.com]) would provide more definite answers.

    No souch tools are available in mainstream Linux distros, to may knowledge.
    • Then it is a good thing we are looking for Windows XP solutions and not Linux.

      • Re:Some ideas (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Kvorg ( 21076 )
        While I personally prefer GNU/Linux system for a miriad of reasons, I simply took into account the phrase Does anyone know of any complete voice activated computer control for Windows XP or Linux? in the original question.

        It does look strange IBM's VivaVoice is listed as supporting Linux, but it never says so on the web page. I thought it was worth some attention since hiding GNU/Linux support in a dark corner is not so general these days as it used to be.

        But since most solutions for disabled tend to be d

  • Obvious perhaps (Score:3, Insightful)

    by elmegil ( 12001 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:08PM (#7957170) Homepage Journal
    Is there any reason he cannot install his old OS on the new machine? I'm still running Win98 SE on my Windows box, and regardless of M$'s support status, it works just fine...for windows.

  • L&H VoiceXpress (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DynaSoar ( 714234 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:27PM (#7957370) Journal
    Says it works with 95, 98, NT and 2000. I have ver. 5, Standard. It came out before XP. I've got 2000, so I can't test for you. I tried the web site listed on the box (www.lhsl.com) but it redirected to Scansoft's page. They have Dragon and ViaVoice listed on the page but sell only Dragon from what I can see. Maybe check for used software places that might have it.

    I got Dragon, but refuse to use it because it tells you it requires Internet Explorer to work (it doesn't; it just requires a DLL). If IE isn't your primary browser, it installs IE from its own installation CD, even if you have a later version.

  • How about...Dragon NaturallySpeaking (Score:5, Informative)

    by TMLink ( 177732 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @07:45PM (#7957544)
    I think you need to look at ScanSoft's product again. Contrary to your statement, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 7 [scansoft.com] DOES allow hands-free use of the computer. In fact within the past 4 months I have trained 2 people to use it in a hands-free situation. From all of the built in shortcuts for the most popular software (including IE and Office) to the command "mouse grid", which allows you to move the mouse around the screen by only your voice, Dragon NaturallySpeaking will work great. You can even use a command (which I forget off the top of my head) to press specific keys on your keyboard. If he has the patients to sit down and learn all of the commands (which can be done over time...learn mouse grid, then slowly pick up the shortcuts over time), Dragon can be faster than a keyboard/mouse combo. If he has a clear voice, training will take 15 minutes. And it works with XP.

    Might I make the suggestion of getting Preferred over Standard. While it's double the cost, it really does seem to do a better job than Standard. Not sure what the difference is (smaller vocab maybe?), but it's there.

  • A long time ago... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WildFire42 ( 262051 ) on Monday January 12, 2004 @09:48PM (#7958515) Homepage
    The history of Dragon Naturally Speaking and ViaVoice is pretty interesting. Dragon Naturally Speaking was started by a company called Dragon, several years ago. Originally, they marketed a program called Dragon Dictate, which was designed for command and control, more so than for document dictation. They stumbled on a new technology using phonemes, and were able to create Naturally Speaking, which, like the name, allows someone to speak at normal conversational speeds and the software will still recognize it (Dragon Dictate pretty much made you speak like William Shatner on a bad day).

    Fast forward a little...Naturally Speaking got sold to a company called Scansoft when Dragon went under (I forget why). Scansoft, within the last year bought ViaVoice from IBM, which had dropped sales and further development of their Linux version of the software, which is now nowhere to be found.

    Ultimately, Scansoft pretty much controls the market in terms of Voice Dictation.

    However, there are some interesting things still going on. For instance, Intel has been working on the Audio/Visual Speech Control/Recognition engine [intel.com], which is part of Intel's OpenCV (face recognition stuff). [intel.com]

    Ultimately, try out this link [leb.net]. There's quite a bit of information there.
    • I work for ScanSoft, so I can fill in the DNS history a bit more...

      Dragon has actually been around as a product since the late 80s / early 90s? Roughly 10 years, in any case.

      Lernout & Hauspie bought out Dragon and axed most of the staff. One of my current coworkers left Dragon shortly prior to that event, and one of my friends joined L&H shortly after. In any event, there was a huge accounting scandal with L&H, and they went bankrupt. ScanSoft acquired the L&H assets (as well as many emplo

  • Not voice but... (Score:4, Informative)

    by An Audience of One ( 554052 ) <mjj29-slashdot AT srcf DOT ucam DOT org> on Monday January 12, 2004 @10:50PM (#7958957) Homepage

    Have a look at the Dasher Project [cam.ac.uk]. Its not voice input, but they have several input methods which can be used by para- and quadra-plegics (eye tracker, head mouse, breath mouse, toungue mouse, etc) - you pretty much can use any movement you can make. It can be faster and more accurate than most voice recognition systems, and they have it working for controlling the UI as well as textual input now.

    Matt

  • Welcome! (Score:2, Funny)

    by unixbum ( 720776 )
    I for one welcome our new hands-free Quadriplegic Overlords!

  • article about the design of VUIs vs GUIs (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    http://www.informit.com/content/index.asp?product_ id={6029804C-55B7-4E1B-AAA4-ED211D6C5B89}
  • This was mentioned earlier, but I didn't see much information on the Dasher website about actual input devices (though Dasher is a neat way to handle typing).

    As a recent UVA grad I heard a lot about the ERICA [virginia.edu] project while I was there. It's an eye tracking system that's pretty neat, though I think it's basically just being used for research at this time and I don't know of a way to actually purchase it.

    I believe there are some commercial eye tracking systems out there, but head tracking is simpler, and t

  • OOSRI group (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am a member of OSSRI (Open Source Speech Recognition Initiative). We are working to develop an open-source speech product to help those with disablities operate a computer. You can join our mailing list to track progress if you are interested. Any help or input would be appreciated.

    http://harvee.org/mailman/listinfo/ossri

    Dustin Wish

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