Abilities Dictation You can dictate text into almost any Windows application such as Word, Word Pad , Notepad, Excel, Internet Explorer America Online, WordPerfect, Microsoft® Office Application, Email - Hotmail, Juno, Lotus Notes, Yahoo, MS Outlook or Express, Eudora, PowerPoint, GoldMine®, Microsoft Works, Instant Messenger, ICQ, AOL , MSN Messenger. You can dictate text into any input field that you can type into. Internet Communications Voice Web Browser Our internet browser has been designed for voice input and control. Voice navigate the internet by saying "text link names", bookmark web sites by saying "Bookmark" and display web sites by name. Say "CNN web site" to display that web site in the voice web browser. You can create or change the names of these voice callable web sites. Use standard voice commands such as Up, Down, Page Down or Page Up to move around each web page. Tell Talking Desktop to read a web page or say "Browser" to open the voice web browser. Voice Research Lookup Our voice LOOKUP ability allows you to research topics of interest from the internet. Say "LOOKUP Africa" and our program will research recent news relating to Africa on the internet. Computer headset if the headset or microphone that came with your computer is not designed for speech recognition The best way to improve your voice interaction with TalkingDesktop is to use a close-talk speech recognition quality headset. Nothing is more frustrating than poor recognition and having to repeat voice commands because the headset or microphone that came with your computer is not designed for speech recognition. More information about computer headsets Voice Email Program Our concept Email program has been designed to be operated completely by voice. The screen display has been stream lined for ease of use and operational understanding. This Concept Email module has been released for users to test drive. This Email form (shown here at 1/8 scale) occupies the entire windows desktop and uses extremely large text. Voice commands which operate this Email module are prominently displayed in accordance with our See and Say design strategy. When you say "Send an Email to John Smith", a new email form is displayed and automatically addressed (from contact file) to John Smith. Say Dictation and begin dictating your email message. When complete, say "Send out this message" and the email is sent. Desktop Control Launch Applications by Name For example: saying "Windows Explorer" will run the windows explorer program on your computer. Saying "Close Window" will close any window on your desktop (same as pressing the X to exit) such as the windows explorer program. You may use commands to control cursor movement such as Up, Down, Page Down or Page Up. Hands-Free Mouse Control by Voice Voice commands can be issued to control mouse direction (up, down, left, right), mouse movement ("ahh" starts and stops movement) and mouse operation (click will do a button press). Saying "Cursor" will make rings appear around the mouse, making it easier to locate your mouse on the screen. Internet Information Retrieval Weather Maps Say "Weather" and your favorite weather map is displayed. Say "Northeast Radar" and a radar picture of the New England area is displayed. Say "Caribbean weather" to see a radar map of developing hurricanes in the Caribbean. Voice Named Web Cameras Display web cameras by name. For example say "Fifth Avenue" and a web camera shot of Fifth Avenue in New York will be displayed. Another example say "Panama Canal" and a camera picture of an ocean vessel ship passing through a lock in Panama is displayed. Say "New York Markets"and a graph of the Dow Jones and NASDAQ markets is displayed. News Headlines News story headlines can be scrolled across your desktop from several sources by saying "News" You can ask to have the news read out-loud as it is updated or whenever you desire. You may ask for just "World News" or "Sports News" to be read out-loud. If a news headline interests you, just say a word or phrase from the headline and the associated article will be displayed in our voice web browser. Stock Ticker Your own personal stock ticker can be tracked and updated. It shows price, volume, percent change, name and symbol. Stock alerts can be setup. Say "Stock Alerts" and those stocks that have exceeded your parameters are spoken out-loud to you. See and Say Concept You can SAY commands, or words that you SEE in orange or yellow text on the screen. You can mouse click these commands, headings or words. Main Menu This desktop ring presents you with some of the most frequent commands and requests that you can say to interact with your computer. This Main Menu Ring will shrink to the top corner of your desktop when not needed. Our Menu Ring shows thumbnail information such as the last contact person, last weather map, rotating last lead news stories and newly received Email. Each thumbnail is a snapshot of the information or picture that you can assess. Note the weather thumbnail on the Ring and then the full weather map which you can ask for by saying "weather". Local Computer Information Contacts Say "Contacts" and a list of your friends or business contacts are displayed with associated information such as address, phone#, etc. Display Pictures or Graphs by Name The program can display pictures by name such as "motorcycle" where motorcyle points to motorcycle.jpg in a folder on your hard drive. You can enter any name that you want to say to have the program display that picture. Personalized Conversation The program supports personalized conversation creation so that the computer will respond with specific speech when a certain word or phrase is heard. For example you can setup the software to say "water is a liquid and wet" when it heards the word "water". Human Computer Interaction Emerging Basic Awareness of the User Image how great it would be to have software that greeted you by name as you approached ! Well stop imagining because TalkingDesktop does this now ! Our program uses basic awareness to "sense" your approach and then greet you with "Hello John its 6:30" and "John you have 3 new email". It can activate a hibernating computer monitor and independantly retrieve the latest weather map for your region. The software starts with Jessica as its name and your computer will respond when it hears you say "Jessica". You may change this name to any name that you want. Read a conversation with Jessica, another of our characters. User Request Tracking This ability allows the software to prioritize frequent requests and then remind you out-loud about previous areas of interest such as a favorite web site you have asked for or a news topic that you have had read out-loud recently. How does this work ?: The program will ask if you are interested in a previous request (such as CNN web site) and all you have to do is say Yes or No. Speech Recognition Speech Recognition allows a full range dialog with your computer so that you can do dictation or issue voice commands. The program supports multiple speech profiles so everyone in the household can speak to the computer and the software dynamically adapts to a users' speech during operation. The software will tell the user when they are speaking too rapidly or too loudly. A vocabulary allows words to be added and customized. Natural Text-to-Speech Talkingdesktop comes with different voices that the user can select from. Further control of how the computer talks is available with commands such as "talk faster", "talk louder", "talk slower". Experimental Vision This experimental software is available to current users. It will attempt to recognize basic gestures and motion using your web camera.