I thought my Mac voice recognition software project might get a little old after the initial excitement wore off, but I'm pleased to say it's still very interesting. It's extremely nice to be getting ready to go for a walk, and simply say, "Computer, current weather", and it responds with the latest weather information. Some of my Mac voice recognition software tasks still need some work, but basic voice commands like this are wonderful.
A huge boon to my Mac voice recognition software project was when I taught, er, programmed the computer to listen at different levels. For instance, when I'm working with it a lot, I tell it to "wake up", but when I'm doing something like writing this blog post, I tell it to "go to sleep", where "go to sleep" really means "listen to a subset of commands", like these:
- Play music
- Stop music
- Play/stop radio
- Change radio stations
- Play/stop DVD
- Current weather
- Wake up
Mac voice recognition software and "listening"
It doesn't sound like much, but having different levels of "listening" has made all the difference in the world to this project. Without these levels I would have thought this was an interesting experiment, and then given up on it, whereas with these levels, I often forget that my voice recognition software is running until I want it to do something, like play iTunes, or get the current weather for me -- which is exactly how you want voice recognition software to work.
For another example of how this works, see my earlier Mac speech recognition software post.
November, 2011 Update: For an update on my Mac speech recognition software application, see this link of my Mac Siri-like speech recognition and computer interaction application.