Guest post by We’re infatuated with Siri on our iPhones, and wish something similar existed for Linux. Turns out, it does exist. Almost. An interesting article by a guy who seems to know a lot about the Xvoice project, and an invitation to get involved. The best open source adventures start like this.
Like Simon which have right now have new release (0.4) which now is very good and worth recommending (it was earlier too, but it was hard to set up, now its easy peasy).
Or bunch of others.
What we really lack of are:
1) Automatic integration with menus of any program. Like HUD but for voice (Ubuntu Phone OS should have it though!)
2) Broad language support (like Siri) which require lots of computational, and lots of knowledge, and team that can set up recognition material. (And that is usually beyound DIY efforts).
3) Easiest and most reliable algorithms out there are for teaching recognition software by their own users, which make it “default” choice for all those projects.
I think that inclusion as standard part in any big Linux distro would alleviate lots of those problems. Maybe Ubuntu Phone OS will change something here.
Voice control is overrated and it only adds a layer of high complexity because one is too lazy to type with a keyboard. The only real use voice control has is for special needs users, nothing more.
Voice control can be useful also when it’s safer – like in a car.
But yeah, overrated in general… (I saw once on Youtube a 2.5-3 decades old IBM promotional video, of dictation software on one of the earliest PCs; not much came out of its enthusiasm)
No need to repeat what is written in the linked article..