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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 ] ]s (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> | |||
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. 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. | |||
==Features== | |||
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.{{fact|date=April 2008}} | |||
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== | ==History== | ||
{{unsourcedsection|date=April 2008}} | |||
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 ]. | |||
] laid out the description of a speech understanding system called DRAGON in 1975.<ref>{{cite journal | |||
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. | |||
| last = Baker | |||
| first = James K. | |||
| title = The DRAGON System - An Overview | |||
| journal = IEEE Transactions on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing | |||
| volume = 23 | |||
| issue = 1 | |||
| pages = 24–29 | |||
| year = 1975 | |||
| doi = 10.1109/TASSP.1975.1162650 }}</ref> | |||
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> | |||
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. | |||
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> | |||
] 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 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> | |||
The software today is being advertised as potentially up to 99% accurate. | |||
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> | |||
==Editions== | |||
{{prose|date=April 2008}} | |||
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). | |||
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> | |||
===Versions=== | |||
==Versions== | |||
{| Class="wikitable" | {| Class="wikitable" | ||
|- | |||
!Version | |||
!Dragon Naturally Speaking Version | |||
!Release date | !Release date | ||
!Editions | !Editions | ||
!Operating Systems Supported | |||
|- | |- | ||
|1.0 | |1.0 | ||
| |
|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 | |||
|} | |} | ||
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== | ==See also== | ||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
* ] | |||
==Notes== | |||
{{Notelist}} | |||
==References== | ==References== | ||
{{reflist}} | |||
<references/> | |||
==External links== | ==External links== | ||
*{{Official| |
*{{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 packageThis article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
A sample dictation in Microsoft Word 2010 | |
Developer(s) | Nuance Communications |
---|---|
Initial release | June 1997; 27 years ago (1997-06) |
Stable release | 16 / February 28, 2023; 22 months ago (2023-02-28) |
Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
Available in | 8 languages |
Type | Speech recognition |
License | Proprietary |
Website | www |
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
- Sarnataro, Valerie (2012-11-08). "Dragon NaturallySpeaking (DNS) 12 Review". technologyguide.com. Technology Guide. Retrieved 2013-07-25.
- "Nuance Announces Major New Releases of Dragon for Windows and Mac OS X". Retrieved 2016-08-22.
- "Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows Vista". Archived from the original on 2009-12-15. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
- "Nuance product support for Microsoft Windows 7". 2010. Retrieved 16 Aug 2010.
- 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.
- "History of Speech Recognition and Transcription Software". Retrieved 2013-07-12.
- "DragonDictate product information". Retrieved 2010-02-03.
- "Dragon NaturallySpeaking 1.0 released". Retrieved 2010-02-03.
- "Dragon Systems purchased by Lernout & Hauspie". New York Times. 2001-05-07. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
- "Goldman Is Cleared Over a Sale Gone Awry". New York Times. 2013-01-23. Retrieved 2013-01-23.
- "ScanSoft and Nuance to Merge". 2005-05-09. Archived from the original on 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2010-02-03.
- "Samsung and LG smart TVs share your voice data behind the fine print". ConsumerReports. 2015-02-09. Retrieved 2016-06-10.
- "Dragon Professional Individual for Mac End of Life". 2005-05-09. Archived from the original on 2018-10-28. Retrieved 2021-11-22.
- "Microsoft makes $20bn bet on speech AI firm Nuance". BBC News. BBC. 2021-04-12. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
- 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.
- Anand, Praharsha (2022-03-07). "Microsoft completes $19.7 billion acquisition of Nuance". ITPro. Future plc. Retrieved 2022-03-07.
External links
- Official website for Nuance Communications