Q. Will Version 10 work with a 64-bit operating system? If not, when can we expect it?

Support for 64-bit operating systems is a common request from Dragon customers. As you know, 64-bit operating systems represent a relatively small percentage of the operating system market, but that market segment is growing rapidly. Users of 64-bit operating systems know firsthand that many programs on the market do not support that operating environment at this point. Products like Dragon are especially complex to support in this kind of environment. We are committed to supporting Windows Vista 64 in the near future, but we have not announced the date yet.

Q. Have the minimum computer specifications changed for Version 10?

No: the minimum requirements are still 1 gHz, and for RAM, 512 MB on Windows 2000 and XP and 1 GB on Windows Vista.  L2 cache size makes a bigger difference in V10; we recommend 1 MB for the L2 cache.

• IMPORTANT NOTE: DNS 10 requires the SSE2 instruction set for Pentium and AMD processors and this has changed in DNS 10.
• The following website includes information on SSE2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2
• Determine if a computer supports SSE2: There are various utilities available to determine if a computer's processor supports SSE2. The following CPU-Z utility is available for free and is updated regularly: http://cpuid.com/cpuz.php
• When running the CPU-Z utility, you should see SSE2 listed in the "Instructions" on the "CPU" tab; if it is not listed, then unfortunately the processor does not support SSE2.  We have seen this missing more frequently with systems run an** AMD processor.

Q. What EMR's are affected by the Preferred/Pro restrictions?

Dragon Professional and Preferred have been released so as not to work in any Windows-based EMR products.  If an EMR is not restricted in the initial Dragon Professional or Preferred release, future releases will plan to correct those EMRs not covered via service pack.

What EMR's are affected by the Preferred/Pro restrictions?

Dragon Professional and Preferred have been released so as not to work in any Windows-based EMR products. If an EMR is not restricted in the initial Dragon Professional or Preferred release, future releases will plan to correct those EMRs not covered via service pack. Read more.

Q. I already use Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Why should I upgrade to Version 10?

More speed, more accuracy and more features. The best reasons to upgrade:

• Up to 20% more accurate out of the box than Version 9 (40-50% more accurate for versions 8 and below)
• Significantly improved response time — more than 50% less time for words to appear on screen for fast speakers
• New Dragon Voice Shortcuts let you quickly search the Web or desktop using simple voice commands (See the feature highlight.)
• Quick Voice Formatting allows you to delete and format text faster than ever (See the feature highlight.)

Q. What specific Model of Bluetooth headset/handheld recorder did we include in the Dragon Naturally Speaking 10.0 Wireless/Mobile Edition?

The Preferred Wireless bundle includes a Plantronics® Calisto™ Headset with Bluetooth® USB adapter to deliver a totally wireless solution. The Plantronics headset, designed exclusively for Dragon usage, offers a universal and highly comfortable design adjustable to right or left ear. The headset boasts a 33 feet (10m) range with up to 8 hours of talk time. The device is not sold separately.

The Preferred Mobile bundle comes with the Philips Digital Voice Tracer, a digital voice recorder that holds up to 33 hours of recorded speech.

Q. Does Dragon offer support for 64-bit operating systems?

Support for 64-bit operating systems is a common request from Dragon customers. As you may know, 64-bit operating systems represent a relatively small percentage of the operating system market, but that market segment is growing rapidly. Users of 64-bit operating systems know firsthand that many programs on the market do not support that operating environment at this point. Products like Dragon are especially complex to support in this kind of environment. We are committed to supporting Windows Vista 64 in the near future, but we have not announced the date.

Q. Does Dragon work on Macintosh computers?

No. Dragon is designed for Windows operating systems. However, Nuance distributes MacSpeech Dictate [more information]. Based on Dragon technology, the award-winning MacSpeech Dictate offers speech recognition for the Apple market.

Q. Can I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to transcribe interviews or meetings?

No, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a speaker-dependent system, meaning that it trained to recognize the voice of a single user and cannot distinguish speech from more than one speaker. People have no problem understanding both Aunt Grace, who has a high, thin voice, and Cousin Paul, who has a voice like a foghorn, because people can easily adjust to the unique characteristics of every voice. Speech-recognition software, on the other hand, works best when the computer has a chance to adjust to each new speaker. The process of teaching the computer to recognize your voice is called "training."

Q. Is Dragon available in more than one language?

Dragon is available in American English, Australian English, Asian English, Indian English, UK English, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish.

The French, Italian, German and Spanish editions also support English. And the Dutch edition supports English, French and German.

Q: What wireless headsets are compatible with Dragon for dictation?

Certified Bluetooth devices are listed under the category: "Wireless microphones" on the Nuance hardware compatibility web site: http://support.nuance.com/compatibility/default.asp. Each device lists the wireless technology — RF or Bluetooth. The certified Bluetooth device lists the drivers and adapters/dongles used in the product bundle that were tested. The BlueParrott from VXI is plug and play and comes with a factory paired base station and driver software. The XCommunicator5 consists of the Sony Ericsson Akono headset HBH-300 microphone and XCommunicator 5 drivers and Bluetooth USB adapter/dongle.

Q. What does “no training required” mean? If I don’t need product training, why is there a tutorial?

"No Training Required," a feature introduced in Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, is focused on voice training as opposed to product training. It is a valuable and important positioning statement to say that Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the first product to eliminate voice training and still deliver high accuracy levels. This strategic message is intended for those who have previously spent a long time in the enrollment process and still received poor results." Training" is the word most often associated with describing "enrollment" or "script reading." The use of "training" in context with "high accuracy" or "eliminates the need to train the software to a user's voice" does not eliminate the need for product training.

Q: Please define and differentiate between Language Model Optimizer and Acoustic Optimizer.

The Acoustic Optimizer is a tool that optimizes the acoustic models. It uses audio in the .dra files, as well as enrollment data, and correction data in the acarchive.nwv. The Language Model optimizer is a tool that optimizes the topic with dictated text found in the . dra files.

Q: Which versions of Dragon support dictation into Electronic Medical Records systems (EMRs)?

Dragon Medical 10 is Nuance's solution for clinicians working in hospitals, private practices, urgent care clinics and other provider settings. Dragon Medical 10 has been designed specifically for clinicians who need advanced capabilities to document care in an electronic medical record faster and more accurately.

These advanced features are only available in Dragon Medical version 10 and are not included with the Dragon Preferred, Professional and Legal editions of Dragon 10. Dictation into an EMR application is disabled in these non-medical versions.

These advanced features include:

• 75 medical specialty vocabularies, which deliver 38 percent higher accuracy than non-medical speech recognition software, saving clinicians thousands of hours in time correcting errors and adding medical terms to Dragon Professional or Preferred.
• New EMR-specific features, ranging from a hidden dictation window capability to enhanced formatting for medical abbreviations and text management, which make products such eClinicalWorks, Epic, Allscripts and other software faster and easier to use.

We have heard from clinicians - and our EMR partners - who previously used Dragon Professional or Preferred version 9 and migrated to Dragon Medical 9 that they wished they could have started with the medical version. Dragon Medical 10 is the right product for busy physicians and its high value feature set makes it the only Dragon solution for EMR use.

Q: How does speech recognition work?

Speech recognition software products like Dragon NaturallySpeaking use the human voice as the main interface between the user and the computer. While relatively simple to use, speech recognition software is a highly sophisticated technology that leverages “language modeling” to recognize and differentiate among the millions of human utterances that make up any language. Using statistical models, speech recognition programs analyze an incoming stream of sound and interpret those sounds as commands and dictation. This process of interpretation is called speech recognition, and its success is measured by the percentage of correct interpretations.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking is an example of a speaker dependent speech recognition system. Dragon creates a voice profile for each user of the system that contains information about the unique characteristics of each person's voice along with a customized set of words, known as a vocabulary, and user specific information including software settings and personalized macros. When Dragon users create and train their user profile, they start with a standard set of models and then customize them for the way they speak (acoustic model) and the way they use words (vocabulary and associated language model). This approach accommodates users with varying accents and speech patterns. The software employs the customized user profile to guess the words spoken. Every time an individual uses Dragon and corrects his recognition errors, the software updates his user profile to enable better recognition accuracy over time.

In most cases, speech recognition is used in conjunction with other input devices including keyboards and mice. However, users can leverage speech recognition to control 100 percent of their computing environment, making this technology ideal for employees with physical challenges, repetitive strain injuries or other reasons to operate information systems completely hands-free.

Q: Do I need to talk in a monotone voice at a slow pace for Dragon NaturallySpeaking to understand me?

No. Speak at your normal pace without slowing down. Your accuracy will actually be best if you speak in long, well-enunciated phrases or sentences. Speaking slowly and deliberately, in short phrases or single words, can actually result in more recognition errors. Longer phrases provide more context, which helps Dragon NaturallySpeaking recognize individual words. To understand what it means to speak both clearly and naturally, listen to the way newscasters read the news. If you copy this style when you dictate, the program should successfully recognize what you say.

In general conversations, many people may mumble, slur their words, or leave words out altogether. They assume, usually correctly, that their listeners will be able to fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, computers won't understand mumbled speech or missing words. They only understand what was actually spoken and don't know enough to fill in the gaps by guessing what was meant.

Q: Is talking to a computer the same as talking to a person?

No. What the computer does when it listens to speech is different from what a person does. Understanding spoken language is something that people often take for granted. Most of us develop the ability to recognize speech when we're very young. We're already experts at speech recognition by the age of three or so.

The first challenge in speech recognition is to identify what is speech and what is just noise. People can filter out noise fairly easily, which lets us talk to each other almost anywhere. We have conversations in busy train stations, across the dance floor, and in crowded restaurants. It would be very dull if we had to sit in a quiet room every time we wanted to talk to each other! Unlike people, computers need help separating speech sounds from other sounds. When you speak to a computer, you should be in a place without too much noise. Then, you must speak clearly into a microphone that has been placed in the right position. If you do this, the computer will hear you just fine, and not get confused by the other noises around you.

Another challenge is how to distinguish between two or more phrases that sound alike. People use common sense and context — knowledge of the topic being talked about — to decide whether a speaker said "ice cream" or "I scream." Speech-recognition programs don't understand what words mean, so they can't use common sense the way people do. Instead, they keep track of how frequently words occur by themselves and in the context of other words. This information helps the computer choose the most likely word or phrase from among several possibilities.