I recently received and tested a copy of Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 software on my Windows 7 machine. The company purports it to be the world's most popular software for talk-to-text applications, with features such as creating documents and e-mails through dictation and surfing the web through voice commands.

Many people (myself included) are wary of this type of software because of it's rocky commercial history. Earlier versions of this kind of program were way more trouble than they were worth (in time, money, and frustration levels) because the technology just wasn't there yet, I can only assume. Nuance's software was a pleasant surprise to someone who had written off voice-command computer programs as a fantasy that played out well in science fiction movies, but just wasn't practical.

It took me roughly twenty minutes to install and initially calibrate the software. I expected to be required by Dragon NaturallySpeaking to dictate to the computer for hours upon hours before it could be properly tuned to my voice, but I was pleasantly surprised by its precision after the preliminary fifteen minute lesson. As I spoke, it delivered portions of text in six to ten word clumps, so it was sometimes necessary to back up quite a bit to edit incorrect proper nouns that had not been “heard” by the software before.

Document and e-mail creation was fairly simple; the average computer user would find implementing Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 for a large dictation project almost plug-and-play. I already plan on giving my wrists a break for an upcoming transcription project that will span several large books.

The voice-to-text software also allows web browsing on command, if you're so inclined. I'm not so busy that I need to set something like this up, but I took it for a test drive nonetheless. After a little research (as provided by the software in easy-to-understand tutorials) I was Google-searching to my heart's content - all through voice command. I can see how it would be useful for someone working outside the boundaries of a cubicle or home desk, but for me it was merely a novelty.