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{{Short description|Speech recognition software package}}
{{articleissues|cleanup=February 2008|or=February 2008|refimprove=February 2008|confusing=February 2008|advert=April 2008}}
{{Multiple issues|
{{Infobox Software |
{{more citations needed|date=August 2011}}
| name = NaturallySpeaking
{{primary sources|date=August 2011}}
| logo= <!-- Commented out because image was deleted: ] -->
{{lead too short|date=August 2011}}
| screenshot = ]
}}
| caption = A sample dictation in DragonPad, the included text editor.

{{Infobox software
| name = Dragon NaturallySpeaking
| title =
| logo = Dragon Naturally Speaking Logo.png
| logo caption =
| logo size = 200
| logo alt =
| screenshot = Dragon NaturallySpeaking.png<!-- Image name is enough -->
| caption = A sample dictation in Microsoft Word 2010
| screenshot size =
| screenshot alt =
| collapsible =
| author =
| developer = ] | developer = ]
| released = {{Start date and age|1997|06}}
| latest release version = 9.5
| discontinued =
| latest release date = January ]
| latest release version = 16
| latest release date = {{Start date and age|2023|02|28}}
| latest preview version = | latest preview version =
| latest preview date = | latest preview date = <!-- {{Start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|df=yes/no}} -->
| status =
| programming language =
| operating system = ] | operating system = ]
| platform =
| genre = ]
| size =
| language =
| language count = 8<!-- Number only -->
| language footnote =
| genre = ]
| license = ] | license = ]
| alexa =
| website = http://www.nuance.com
| website = {{URL|www.nuance.com}}
| standard =
| AsOf =
}} }}


'''Dragon NaturallySpeaking''' (also known as '''Dragon for PC,''' or '''DNS''')<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.technologyguide.com/review/dragon-naturallyspeaking-dns-12-review/ |title=Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) 12 Review |last=Sarnataro |first=Valerie |date=2012-11-08 |website=technologyguide.com |publisher=Technology Guide |access-date=2013-07-25}}</ref> is a ] software package developed by Dragon Systems of ], which was acquired in turn by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, ], and ]. It runs on ] ]s. Version 15 (Professional Individual and Legal Individual),<ref name="Nuance Dragon Products">{{cite web |url= http://www.nuance.com/company/news-room/press-releases/Dragon-New-Releases-Powered-by-Deep-Learning.docx |title= Nuance Announces Major New Releases of Dragon for Windows and Mac OS X |access-date= 2016-08-22}}</ref> which supports 32-bit and 64-bit editions of ], ] and ], was released in August 2016.<ref name="64-bit support">{{cite web |url=http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/support/vista_64bit.asp |title= Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows Vista | access-date= 2009-12-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091215154655/http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/support/vista_64bit.asp |archive-date=2009-12-15 |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.nuance.co.uk/windows7/ |title=Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows 7 |year=2010 |access-date=16 Aug 2010}}</ref>
'''Dragon NaturallySpeaking''' is a ] software package developed by ], and sold by ] for ] PCs. It was among the first programs to make speech recognition practical on a PC.<ref name="bhanoo">Sindya N. Bhanoo. July 16, 2007. ''Baltimore Sun''. Retrieved on ], ].</ref>


==Features==
NaturallySpeaking uses a minimal visual interface. Dictated words appear in a floating ] as they are spoken, and when the speaker pauses, the program ] the words into the active window at the location of the cursor.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking uses a minimal user interface. As an example, dictated words appear in a floating ] as they are spoken (though there is an option to suppress this display to increase speed), and when the speaker pauses, the program ] the words into the ] at the location of the cursor. (Dragon does not support dictating to background windows.) The software has three primary areas of functionality: voice recognition in dictation with speech transcribed as written text, recognition of spoken commands, and ]: speaking text content of a document. Voice profiles can be accessed by different computers in a networked environment, although the audio hardware and configuration must be identical to those of the machine generating the configuration. The Professional version allows creation of custom commands to control programs or functions not built into NaturallySpeaking.


==History==
Like other speech recognition software, NaturallySpeaking has three primary areas of functionality. Dictation, whereby spoken language is transcribed to written text; commands that control, whereby spoken language is recognized as a command to click ] (controls); and finally text-to-speech whereby written text is converted to synthesized audio stream. Early versions of the software had to be trained for approximately 10 minutes to recognize the user's voice, though version 9 no longer requires the initial training.
Nuance claims that using NaturallySpeaking, writing a 900 word essay would take 6 minutes, while typing 40 words per minute and writing a 900 word essay would take 22 minutes.


] laid out the description of a speech understanding system called DRAGON in 1975.<ref>{{cite journal
==Common user profiles==
| last = Baker
{{Unreferencedsection|date=October 2007}}
| first = James K.
* Health-care industry - This is likely the most profitable sector for speech recognition vendors. The high cost of labor, the specialized ] vocabulary of medicine, the formalized input, and the need to access a computer while using hands for other tasks makes speech recognition a compelling tool for health-care workers.{{cite web
| title = The DRAGON System - An Overview
| last = Scheuer
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
| first = Armin
| volume = 23
| title = Speech recognition experts meet in Berlin
| issue = 1
| url=http://healthcareitnews.eu/content/view/707/45/
| pages = 24–29
| accessdate = 2007-11-25 }}
| year = 1975
* Legal industry - Similar to health care
| doi = 10.1109/TASSP.1975.1162650 }}</ref>
* Accessibility - Speech recognition is the most effective means of using a computer for those with limited or no ability to use their hands. Many people start using speech recognition after suffering from the symptoms of ], although voice strain and RSI of the vocal cords is a possible side-effect. Note this is not especially designed for the disabled, as there are a few key functions that have no default audible way to trigger, thus requiring keyboard input.
In 1982 he and Dr. ], his wife, founded Dragon Systems to release products centered around their voice recognition prototype.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.dragon-medical-transcription.com/history_speech_recognition.html | title=History of Speech Recognition and Transcription Software |access-date =2013-07-12}}</ref> He was President of the company and she was CEO.


] was first released for ], and utilized ], a probabilistic method for temporal ]. At the time, the hardware was not powerful enough to address the problem of ], and DragonDictate was unable to determine the boundaries of words during continuous speech input. Users were forced to enunciate one word at a time, clearly separated by a small pause after each word. DragonDictate was based on a ] model, and is known as a discrete utterance speech recognition engine.<ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/a2x-voice/dd-faq.html#What | title= DragonDictate product information |access-date= 2010-02-03}}</ref>
==Accuracy==
Highest accuracy is achieved with, in approximate order of effectiveness:
*A quality input signal.
*A powerful computer system.
*Adding phrases to NaturallySpeaking's vocabulary.
*Using NaturallySpeaking's Acoustic Optimizer.
*Correcting NaturallySpeaking's misinterpretations.
*Feeding NaturallySpeaking many proofread documents.
*Training NaturallySpeaking.


Dragon Systems released NaturallySpeaking 1.0 as their first continuous dictation product in 1997.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.dragon-medical-transcription.com/history_speech_recognition.html | title=Dragon NaturallySpeaking 1.0 released |access-date =2010-02-03}}</ref>
Accuracy, in practice, varies widely in ] programs. In the present self-learning program developers made use of human natural language speech ] Accuracy of conversion from speech to text is especially dependent on the fidelity of the 'single-user ]' to the words and sound of the speaker's 'normal' voice. Such single user voice profiles are intended to provide a large spoken vocabulary rendered into text for only one, or a small set of, profiled user. Indeed, the accuracy of such profiles is sensitive to the accuracy of early program input (early program 'learning').<ref></ref> Also, hardware and environmental conditions should be optimized for best results.


The company was then purchased in June 2000 by ], a Belgium-based corporation that was subsequently found to have been perpetrating financial fraud.<ref>{{cite news| url= https://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/07/business/dragon-systems-sputters-after-belgian-suitor-fails.html | title= Dragon Systems purchased by Lernout & Hauspie | access-date= 2010-02-03 |date=2001-05-07 | work=New York Times}}</ref> Following the all-share deal advised by ], Lernout & Hauspie declared bankruptcy in November 2000. The deal was not originally supposed to be all stock and the unavailability of the Goldman Sachs team to advise concerning the change in terms was one of the grounds of the Bakers' subsequent lawsuit. The Bakers had received stock worth hundreds of millions of US dollars, but were only able to sell a few million dollars' worth before the stock lost all its value as a result of the accounting fraud. The Bakers sued Goldman Sachs for negligence, intentional misrepresentation and breach of fiduciary duty, which in January 2013 led to a 23-day trial in Boston. The jury cleared Goldman Sachs of all charges.<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/business/goldman-sachs-cleared-in-collapse-of-dragon-systems-sale.html | title=Goldman Is Cleared Over a Sale Gone Awry | access-date= 2013-01-23 |date= 2013-01-23 |work=New York Times}}</ref> Following the bankruptcy of Lernout & Hauspie, the rights to the Dragon product line were acquired by ] of ], also a Goldman Sachs client. In 2005 ScanSoft launched a ''de facto'' acquisition of ], and rebranded itself as ].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.nuance.com/news/pressreleases/2005/20050509_nuance.asp |title= ScanSoft and Nuance to Merge |access-date=2010-02-03 |date=2005-05-09 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100528035817/http://www.nuance.com/news/pressreleases/2005/20050509_nuance.asp | archive-date=2010-05-28 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
*Any ] introduced in the path from throat to computer can reduce accuracy by degrading signal quality. Speech is created by the ], travels through cable, and arrives inside the computer at the ]. Possible causes of inaccuracy include ] quality microphones, too much ] around the speaker, excessive noise inside the ].


As of 2012, ] included voice recognition feature powered by the same speech engine as Dragon NaturallySpeaking.<ref>{{cite web| url= http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/02/who-s-the-third-party-that-samsung-and-lg-smart-tvs-are-sharing-your-voice-data-with/index.htm | title= Samsung and LG smart TVs share your voice data behind the fine print |publisher=ConsumerReports |date=2015-02-09 |access-date=2016-06-10}}</ref> In 2014, following the discontinuation of ] for ], a product dating back to Nuance's 2010 purchase of ], NaturallySpeaking gained Mac compatibility, though Mac support was later terminated in 2018.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.nuance.com/dragon/support/professional-individual-for-mac-eol.html |title= Dragon Professional Individual for Mac End of Life |access-date=2021-11-22 |date=2005-05-09 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181028142201/https://www.nuance.com/dragon/support/professional-individual-for-mac-eol.html | archive-date=2018-10-28 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
*The ] included in many laptops do not have shielding, such as computers from Dell, Compaq, and Hewlett-Packard desktops.


In 2021, ] announced plans to acquire Nuance, and therefore Dragon NaturallySpeaking.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56722862 |title=Microsoft makes $20bn bet on speech AI firm Nuance |date=2021-04-12 |website=] |publisher=] |access-date=2022-03-07}}</ref> The acquisition completed in March 2022.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-04/microsoft-vaults-further-into-health-care-services-with-closing-of-nuance-deal |title=Microsoft Vaults Further Into Health-Care Services With Closing of Nuance Deal |last=Bass |first=Dina |date=2022-03-04 |access-date=2022-03-07 |publisher=] |website=]}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/mergers-and-acquisitions/365024/microsoft-completes-197-billion-acquisition-of |date=2022-03-07 |access-date=2022-03-07 |title=Microsoft completes $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance |first=Praharsha |last=Anand |website=ITPro |publisher=]}}</ref>
*Microphones that contain ] are often considered preferable, and many inexpensive ones offer excellent performance.

*Note that traditionally such a microphone is not included in the boxed sets; it is recommended that the starter microphone be replaced.

*External USB sound cards are available like the Buddy USB 6G Long for computers with a 6ft long cable and a version with a three inch cable for lap top computers from InSync Speech Technologies, Inc. at http://www.insyncspeech.com. Other external USB sound cards are also available like the Andrea USB Sound Pod.

These external sound cards are made specifically for speech recognition and are free from electronic interference because they are outside the computer.

Coupling these types of sound cards with high grade noise canceling microphones or headsets produces a good clean input signal to Dragon Naturally Speaking.



The key concepts are ''NaturallySpeaking learns with mostly prevention, moderate correction (e.g. 1 in a 100) and lastly training''. Generally, a prevention approach is favored by adding unusual words to NaturallySpeaking before dictating them. As for correcting misinterpretations afterwards, it works more effectively by including adjacent words (context), thus helping to distinguish similar sounds.

==Editions and versions ==

There are a range of editions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, each of which comes with a noise-canceling headset microphone:

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Standard Edition, which is an entry-level version of the product that enables command and control of the PC, as well as speech-to-text input for email, instant messaging clients and word processing.

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred Edition, which adds robust integration with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc.) and Corel WordPerfect, as well as support for digital recorders and Bluetooth headset microphones. This version also allows users to control the formatting of documents by voice (increase font size, set colors, set columns, insert tables, etc.)

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Mobile Edition, which is the Preferred edition with a digital voice recorder. Users can dictate on the recorder, upload the recording to their PC, and have Dragon NaturallySpeaking convert the recording into a text or Microsoft Word document.

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Edition, which adds robust support for custom voice commands (where the user can associate a word or phrase to pre-defined text or graphics) and scripting (which enables automated operation and integration with more specialized applications such as electronic medical records and case management applications.)

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional Medical and Professional Legal, which are versions of the Professional edition with extended vocabularies for those domains.

- Dragon NaturallySpeaking Client and Server Developer Toolkits (SDK's), which are used by commercial and in-house developers to integrate speech with their applications. This can include front-end speech recognition (adding speech input to the application) and back-end speech recognition (batch processing of recorded speech for search, transcription or other application areas).

Total command-and-control requires a lot of research and support. Nuance has chosen not to go down that road. Nuance provides the tools to create commands, but charges for command support. This has led to a prevalence of ] (VARs), people who develop commands to solve problems such as reducing the repetition of a series of events into a few spoken words.

NaturallySpeaking can be extended by other programs. , for instance, is a tool that allows NaturallySpeaking to interact with the ].

In addition, certain versions of NaturallySpeaking (7,8,9) can be run on Linux operating systems using the WINE open-source implementation system. The implementation does not give full Windows functionality, concentrating instead on text-recognition capability using the included DragonPad.


==Versions==
{| Class="wikitable" {| Class="wikitable"
|-
!Version
!Dragon Naturally Speaking Version
!Release date !Release date
!Editions !Editions
!Operating Systems Supported
|- |-
|1.0 |1.0
|June 1997 |April 1997
|Personal |Personal
|Windows 95, NT 4.0.
|- |-
|2.0 |2.0
|November 1997 |November 1997
|Standard, Preferred, Deluxe |Standard, Preferred, Deluxe
|Windows 95, NT 4.0
|- |-
|3.0 |3.0
|October 1998 |October 1998
|Point & Speak, Standard, Preferred, Professional (with optional Legal and Medical add-on products) |Point & Speak, Standard, Preferred, Professional (with optional Legal and Medical add-on products)
|Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0.
|-
|3.01
|
|Teens
|- |-
|4.0 |4.0
|August 4, 1999 |August 4, 1999
|Essentials,Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, Mobile |Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, Mobile
|Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 SP3+.
|- |-
|5.0 |5.0
|August 2000 |August 2000
|Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0 SP6+, 2000.
|- |-
|6.0 |6.0
|November 15, 2001 |November 15, 2001
|Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|
|- |-
|7.0 |7.0
|March 2003 |March 2003
|Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|Windows 98SE, Me, NT4 SP6+, 2000, XP.
|- |-
|8.0 |8.0
|November 2004 |November 2004
|Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical |Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|Windows Me (Only Standard and Preferred editions), Windows 2000 SP4+, Windows XP SP1+.
|- |-
|9.0 |9.0
|July 2006 |July 2006
|Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server |Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server,
|Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP1+.
|-
|9.1
|??
|Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server
|- |-
|9.5 |9.5
|January 2007 |January 2007
|Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server |Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server
|Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP1+, Vista (32-bit).
|-
|10.0
|August 7, 2008
|Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista (32-bit). Server 2003.
|-
|10.1
|March 2009
|Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
|Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003.
|-
|11.0
|August 2010
|Home, Premium, Professional, Legal
|Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
|-
|11.0
|2011
|SDK client (DSC), SDK server (DSS)
|Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit only), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2003 and 2008, SP1, SP2 and R2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
|-
|11.5
|June 2011
|Home, Premium, Professional, Legal
|Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
|-
|11.0
|August 2011
|Medical (Dragon Medical Practice Edition)
|Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
|-
|12.0
|October 2012
|Home, Premium, Professional, Legal
|Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
|-
|12.5
|February 2013
|Home, Premium, Professional, Legal
|Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
|-
|12
|June 2013
|Medical (Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2)
|Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
|-
|13
|August 2014
|Home, Premium, Professional, and Legal.
|7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+
|-
|13
|September 2015
|Medical (UK, French, German) (Dragon Medical Practice Edition 3)
|7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit), 10 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+
|-
|14
|September 2015
|Professional (individual, and Group)
|7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit), 10 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+. Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
|-
|15
|August 16, 2016
|Dragon Professional Individual; Dragon Legal Individual; Dragon Professional Individual for Mac (version 6)
|7, 8.1, 10 (32- and 64-bit); Server 2008 R2, Server 2012 R2. Mac OS X 0.11, macOS 10.12
|-
|15
|May 1, 2017
|Dragon Professional Group (Languages: English US and German only)
|7, 8.1, and 10, 32-bit and 64-bit
|-
|15
|January 22, 2018
|Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 (Languages: English US)
|
|-
|16
|February 28, 2023
|Dragon Professional
|Windows 10, 11, Server 2016, 2019 and 2022
|} |}
Note that owners of DNS version 9.0 or 9.1 which is a patched version of 9.0 can download the entire full DNS 9.5 version for free with a valid serial number. This is not an upgrade. The download is 1.06 GB for Preferred, Professional, and Legal & 1.86 GB for DNS Medical.


Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 is available in the following languages; UK English, US English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Japanese (aka "Dragon Speech 11" in Japan).
DNS 9.5 is a new full version of DNS 9.X that includes the 9.1 patches so it is more stable that version 9.1 and supports Windows Vista as well as Windows XP and Microsoft Word 2007. Note that DNS will not run on the 64 bit version of Windows Vista. Also note that it has been reported that DNS 9.5 runes a lot faster on Microsoft Office 2003 as opposed to 2007 unless you have one of the newest Inlet dual core processors.


==See also==
The web address is http://www.nuance.com/vista.
* ]
* ]


==History== ==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
NaturallySpeaking has passed through four companies and evolved considerably since its first beginnings in the early 1980s as a research prototype called DRAGON. The married couple ] and ] founded ] in ], deciding to commercialize DRAGON when their funding was cut by ]. Their first product ] was sold for a number of years. Dr. James Baker departed from the conventional ], and was a pioneer in ], a way of using statistics for recognition of speech. His wife developed the ] named ].

In March of ], Dragon Systems began selling DragonDictate (for DOS) at a cost of $9000 for a single-user license. As hardware became less expensive over the next several years the price decreased, and by the time NaturallySpeaking 1.0 was released, the price of DragonDictate for Windows was about $2000. The hardware of the time was not yet powerful enough to address the difficult problem of ], and was unable to determine the boundaries of words in the continuous signal that constitute human voice. Users had to pronounce one word at a time, each clearly separated by a small pause before the next. DragonDictate is based on a ] model, and is known as a ] speech recognition engine.

In 1997 advances in hardware technology allowed NaturallySpeaking version 1.0 to launch as the first available continuous dictation system. During this time the speech recognition industry promoted enthusiastically the notion that speech input was "the" natural modality that would eventually supersede more "primitive" methods such as keyboards. Trying to reach a mass market, vendors dropped prices to levels that were unsustainable.

] bought Dragon Systems in ]. The dictation system ] burst in ], and Lernout & Hauspie had a spectacular bankruptcy. ] bought the rights for Dragon products. In ], ScanSoft merged with ] , and changed the name of the combined entity to ]. This shows a particular drive of the company to move further into the Enterprise speech arena.

The software today is being advertised as potentially up to 99% accurate.

==Features missing since DragonDictate==
Later versions of NaturallySpeaking include a feature to ignore some types of external noise. This is the ] technology originally ported over from the L&H product ]. While individual noises can't be trained as with DragonDictate there is suppression using NBS running in the background with NaturallySpeaking 8.

Previous to version 8 Preferred, it was impossible to have several language versions of Dragon NaturallySpeaking installed on one system (for example: German and French). However, all non-English versions of DNS also contain the functionality to dictate in English. This problem was rectified in DNS 8 Preferred, where all languages can coexist and function fully on a single installation.

==See also==
* ]


==References== ==References==
{{reflist}}
<references/>


==External links== ==External links==
*{{Official|http://www.nuance.com}} *{{Official website|https://www.nuance.com/dragon.html}} for Nuance Communications

{{Authority control}}


{{DEFAULTSORT:Dragon Naturallyspeaking}}
]
]
]
]
] ]
] ]
] ]

Latest revision as of 11:48, 18 September 2024

Speech recognition software package
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A sample dictation in Microsoft Word 2010
Developer(s)Nuance Communications
Initial releaseJune 1997; 27 years ago (1997-06)
Stable release16 / February 28, 2023; 21 months ago (2023-02-28)
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows
Available in8 languages
TypeSpeech recognition
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.nuance.com

Dragon NaturallySpeaking (also known as Dragon for PC, or DNS) is a speech recognition software package developed by Dragon Systems of Newton, Massachusetts, which was acquired in turn by Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, Nuance Communications, and Microsoft. It runs on Windows personal computers. Version 15 (Professional Individual and Legal Individual), which supports 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 7, 8 and 10, was released in August 2016.

Features

Dragon NaturallySpeaking uses a minimal user interface. As an example, dictated words appear in a floating tooltip as they are spoken (though there is an option to suppress this display to increase speed), and when the speaker pauses, the program transcribes the words into the active window at the location of the cursor. (Dragon does not support dictating to background windows.) The software has three primary areas of functionality: voice recognition in dictation with speech transcribed as written text, recognition of spoken commands, and text-to-speech: speaking text content of a document. Voice profiles can be accessed by different computers in a networked environment, although the audio hardware and configuration must be identical to those of the machine generating the configuration. The Professional version allows creation of custom commands to control programs or functions not built into NaturallySpeaking.

History

Dr. James Baker laid out the description of a speech understanding system called DRAGON in 1975. In 1982 he and Dr. Janet M. Baker, his wife, founded Dragon Systems to release products centered around their voice recognition prototype. He was President of the company and she was CEO.

DragonDictate was first released for DOS, and utilized hidden Markov models, a probabilistic method for temporal pattern recognition. At the time, the hardware was not powerful enough to address the problem of word segmentation, and DragonDictate was unable to determine the boundaries of words during continuous speech input. Users were forced to enunciate one word at a time, clearly separated by a small pause after each word. DragonDictate was based on a trigram model, and is known as a discrete utterance speech recognition engine.

Dragon Systems released NaturallySpeaking 1.0 as their first continuous dictation product in 1997.

The company was then purchased in June 2000 by Lernout & Hauspie, a Belgium-based corporation that was subsequently found to have been perpetrating financial fraud. Following the all-share deal advised by Goldman Sachs, Lernout & Hauspie declared bankruptcy in November 2000. The deal was not originally supposed to be all stock and the unavailability of the Goldman Sachs team to advise concerning the change in terms was one of the grounds of the Bakers' subsequent lawsuit. The Bakers had received stock worth hundreds of millions of US dollars, but were only able to sell a few million dollars' worth before the stock lost all its value as a result of the accounting fraud. The Bakers sued Goldman Sachs for negligence, intentional misrepresentation and breach of fiduciary duty, which in January 2013 led to a 23-day trial in Boston. The jury cleared Goldman Sachs of all charges. Following the bankruptcy of Lernout & Hauspie, the rights to the Dragon product line were acquired by ScanSoft of Burlington, Massachusetts, also a Goldman Sachs client. In 2005 ScanSoft launched a de facto acquisition of Nuance Communications, and rebranded itself as Nuance.

As of 2012, LG Smart TVs included voice recognition feature powered by the same speech engine as Dragon NaturallySpeaking. In 2014, following the discontinuation of DragonDictate for Mac, a product dating back to Nuance's 2010 purchase of MacSpeech Dictate, NaturallySpeaking gained Mac compatibility, though Mac support was later terminated in 2018.

In 2021, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Nuance, and therefore Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The acquisition completed in March 2022.

Versions

Dragon Naturally Speaking Version Release date Editions Operating Systems Supported
1.0 April 1997 Personal Windows 95, NT 4.0.
2.0 November 1997 Standard, Preferred, Deluxe Windows 95, NT 4.0
3.0 October 1998 Point & Speak, Standard, Preferred, Professional (with optional Legal and Medical add-on products) Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0.
4.0 August 4, 1999 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, Mobile Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 SP3+.
5.0 August 2000 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0 SP6+, 2000.
6.0 November 15, 2001 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical
7.0 March 2003 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical Windows 98SE, Me, NT4 SP6+, 2000, XP.
8.0 November 2004 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical Windows Me (Only Standard and Preferred editions), Windows 2000 SP4+, Windows XP SP1+.
9.0 July 2006 Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server, Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP1+.
9.5 January 2007 Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical, SDK client, SDK server Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP1+, Vista (32-bit).
10.0 August 7, 2008 Essentials, Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista (32-bit). Server 2003.
10.1 March 2009 Standard, Preferred, Professional, Legal, Medical Windows 2000 SP4+, XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003.
11.0 August 2010 Home, Premium, Professional, Legal Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
11.0 2011 SDK client (DSC), SDK server (DSS) Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit only), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2003 and 2008, SP1, SP2 and R2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
11.5 June 2011 Home, Premium, Professional, Legal Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
11.0 August 2011 Medical (Dragon Medical Practice Edition) Windows XP SP2+ (32-bit), Vista SP1+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2003, 2008.
12.0 October 2012 Home, Premium, Professional, Legal Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
12.5 February 2013 Home, Premium, Professional, Legal Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
12 June 2013 Medical (Dragon Medical Practice Edition 2) Windows XP SP3+ (32-bit), Vista SP2+ (32-bit and 64-bit), 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
13 August 2014 Home, Premium, Professional, and Legal. 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+
13 September 2015 Medical (UK, French, German) (Dragon Medical Practice Edition 3) 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit), 10 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+
14 September 2015 Professional (individual, and Group) 7 (32 and 64-bit), 8.1 (32 and 64-bit), 10 (32 and 64-bit). Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012. Mac OS X 10.6+. Server 2008, Server 2008 R2, Server 2012.
15 August 16, 2016 Dragon Professional Individual; Dragon Legal Individual; Dragon Professional Individual for Mac (version 6) 7, 8.1, 10 (32- and 64-bit); Server 2008 R2, Server 2012 R2. Mac OS X 0.11, macOS 10.12
15 May 1, 2017 Dragon Professional Group (Languages: English US and German only) 7, 8.1, and 10, 32-bit and 64-bit
15 January 22, 2018 Dragon Medical Practice Edition 4 (Languages: English US)
16 February 28, 2023 Dragon Professional Windows 10, 11, Server 2016, 2019 and 2022

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 is available in the following languages; UK English, US English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, and Japanese (aka "Dragon Speech 11" in Japan).

See also

Notes

References

  1. Sarnataro, Valerie (2012-11-08). "Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) 12 Review". technologyguide.com. Technology Guide. Retrieved 2013-07-25.
  2. "Nuance Announces Major New Releases of Dragon for Windows and Mac OS X". Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  3. "Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows Vista". Archived from the original on 2009-12-15. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  4. "Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows 7". 2010. Retrieved 16 Aug 2010.
  5. Baker, James K. (1975). "The DRAGON System - An Overview". IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. 23 (1): 24–29. doi:10.1109/TASSP.1975.1162650.
  6. "History of Speech Recognition and Transcription Software". Retrieved 2013-07-12.
  7. "DragonDictate product information". Retrieved 2010-02-03.
  8. "Dragon NaturallySpeaking 1.0 released". Retrieved 2010-02-03.
  9. "Dragon Systems purchased by Lernout & Hauspie". New York Times. 2001-05-07. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
  10. "Goldman Is Cleared Over a Sale Gone Awry". New York Times. 2013-01-23. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
  11. "ScanSoft and Nuance to Merge". 2005-05-09. Archived from the original on 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
  12. "Samsung and LG smart TVs share your voice data behind the fine print". ConsumerReports. 2015-02-09. Retrieved 2016-06-10.
  13. "Dragon Professional Individual for Mac End of Life". 2005-05-09. Archived from the original on 2018-10-28. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
  14. "Microsoft makes $20bn bet on speech AI firm Nuance". BBC News. BBC. 2021-04-12. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
  15. Bass, Dina (2022-03-04). "Microsoft Vaults Further Into Health-Care Services With Closing of Nuance Deal". Bloomberg Technology. Bloomberg L.P. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
  16. Anand, Praharsha (2022-03-07). "Microsoft completes $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance". ITPro. Future plc. Retrieved 2022-03-07.

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