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Surprise surprise. Windows Vista speech recognition actually works. Contrary to what MSNBC criticize as a ‘wreck’, the speech recognition technology is well developed and highly usable. I got my hands on the July CTP build (5472) of Windows Vista and gave it a try, and I recorded what I found. I used the internal microphone array in my laptop, so the sound quality is not optimal but Vista handled it well.

This screencast focuses on the areas of speech recognotion including: dictation, commands, selecting alternatives, ’show numbers’, ‘mouse grid’, mouse functions, web browsing, and keyboard functions. The following video contains mild coarse language, strong violence and parental guidance is advised.

In addition: There is a whole lot more to speech recognition than what I have demonstrated. Even many basic features that I haven’t demonstrated, like spelling out a name or technical word. So don’t think what you see is what you get, having said that, the possibilities of speech recognition in a Tablet PC or Media Centre is mind-blowing. I thank everyone who enjoyed the video.

In addition addition: A lot of people also noticed that I had to repeat a bit of what I said. This is primarily my fault. In the speech control panel, you would often see a blue rotating circle. This is to indicate the speech recogniser is currently busy checking what is on-screen. Also, Camtasia the screen recording tool is very CPU intensive, so there was less processing power was available for the speech recogniser. I sometimes spoke too quickly between commands, so it hasn’t fully analysed all the available options yet.

Full video demo:

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Here the first demo … it’s funny
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