INNOVATION:I AM NOT typing these words; I'm speaking them directly into the computer, using the new voice recognition software I just bought off Amazon, reports RICHARD GILLIS
The words on the page are being produced without me touching a keyboard or any of the control functions on my laptop.
It's so easy it feels like cheating. The programme is called "MacSpeech Dictate", or if you use a PC rather than Mac, the same people sell the software under the brand name "Dragon Naturally Speaking". The package comes with its own headset and microphone and you go through a pre-prepared script to enable the software to familiarise itself with your voice.
To improve accuracy further, I downloaded a few old articles so it gets used to my limited vocabulary. The more prep work you do, claim Nuance, the company that makes it, the better the results. The difference it already makes to my productivity is incredible. It takes around 15 minutes to transcribe 1,000 words from tape, a fraction of the time it takes to do it manually, meaning features can be turned around more quickly than was previously the case.
I heard about Dictate through the oldest marketing channel in the world, word of mouth. A journalist friend of mine listened once too often to me moaning on about the tedium of transcription and put me onto it.
It is a rare example of innovation delivering on its promise. This really does work. However, my cynicism towards all things new meant my friend's suggestion was met with the usual cynicism: "If it's so good why have I not heard about it before?"
For someone who writes regularly in this column called Innovation, I am a bit of a laggard when it comes to taking up new things. I've been burnt so many times by the false promises of the high-tech sector's snake oil merchants, that I need to see concrete evidence that something is worth paying for before I hand over the cash. As a result my buying process on anything costing more than a few quid is painstaking. After my tip off, I went straight to Google to find out what people were saying about the product, which retails at around €140, on the forums.
The results of my search were not initially reassuring. For example, the Amazon reviews polarised dramatically, with half the 20 or so respondents giving the product one or no stars, while the other half raved about it.
"Don't even think about buying this. It just doesn't work. I've spent hours loading it with information and it's still rubbish!" wrote one irate reviewer (Who are these people who get so irate online?).
However, the product's central benefit, a life without the keyboard and freedom from repetitive strain injury, was so alluring that I had to try it. It arrived a day later and within half an hour I was transcribing straight onto the page. Having used it for a while now, it has become a central part of my working life and I'm convinced that my infatuation with it is a factor of my low expectations.
Compare this experience with my view of the new Apple iPhone, easily the most eagerly anticipated launch of the last year or so. I have just bought the 3G version and I sort of think it's okay, but not fantastic, which is now my default response when buying top-end tech products: "You mean it does what they said it was going to do? Is that all?"
It sums up the problem facing the technology sector, how else can they compete other than to shout loud and over sell? A strategy that leads to a vague, if unjustified, sense of disappointment among customers.
By any measure, the iPhone 3G delivers on its promise - e-mail, internet, iPod and phone in one sleek package - but it is also big, heavy, the battery life is rubbish and I can't hear it when it rings. I'm also expecting it to be obsolete within two years and that makes me cross every time I look at it.
So fast is the product innovation cycle that my second generation iPod - the one with a small grey and black screen, scroll wheel in the middle and buttons on the top - now looks like a museum piece. When I get it out on the train, people think I'm being wilfully eccentric, or attempting some sort of retro-trendiness.
This all came to a head when watching the recent Disney-Pixar film Wall-E with my daughter. There's a scene where the hero, a small, cute, industrial waste collecting thing, goes back to his home, which is made up of old artefacts he has amassed from the huge dump that is the US (do you remember when cartoons didn't deliver a clumping big message).
On his shelf, Wall-E has my iPod, along with what looks like a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt.
By the way, I typed that last bit. Even MacSpeech has its limits.
