🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm trying to get a handle on the state-of-the-art in speech
recognition systems. Could anyone in netland let me have some
idea of (a) where we are now and (b) where we'll be in 2-5
years time re...

  * for a specific voice, and a non-mega$ desktop machine, what's
    a good recognition vocabulary? 5000 words? 10000 words? I
    hear that there's a product out called "Dragon Dictate" for
    which a 30000 word vocabulary has been mentioned (h/w reqd.
    = 386-type). Is this genuwyne? What happens if you get a cold?
    Will you need to train all 30000 words again? What sort of
    recognition speed is likely on a non-Cray?

  * for "generic voice" (eg: all American-speaking females), what is
    a good vocabulary? What sort of reliability is attainable?

  * what's good vis-a-vis "natural" or continuous speech? How
    capable are recognition systems at handling speech without
    staccato-type interword pauses?

Paul Ducklin
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CSIR, Pretoria, RSA
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