RSI-Relief

Naomi Aoki, a writer for the Boston Globe, in search of relief for her carpal-tunnel syndrome, recently tested two voice-recognition programs and posted her results at boston.com. She reports numerous problems with IBM’s ViaVoice 9.1 Pro, but was pleasantly surprised with Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8 Preferred. “I picked up a Boston Globe and began to dictate. When I looked up from the newspaper, I could hardly believe my eyes,” she writes. “Aside from the fact that the opening sentence was missing hyphens, there were only two mistakes. The rest of the story was just as accurate. That night, I lay in bed dictating and sending e-mails on my laptop. Now this was fun!”

Personally, I’ve never tried any voice-recognition software. So far, my RSI problems are manageble without it. But if I ever need to go that route, the results she reports are encouraging.