Microsoft has released a new voice dictation add-in for its Word, PowerPoint, and Outlook applications. It’s part of the company’s Garage program, which encourages its employees to experiment with technology, so it’s still in the early stages and doesn’t come with support or anything. But it’s free, so it’s a great way to test out voice dictation without having to buy specialized software.
When you install the The Dictate add-in, it adds a Dictation tab to ribbon that’s pretty self-explanatory. You just click the Start button and start talking, and it uses Cortana to type what you’re saying.
You can speak in more than 20 languages and Dictate can also translate to another 40 as you go. It recognizes some basic commands like “new line” and “delete” and common punctuation marks. I gave it a quick try with Word and it did a pretty good job with words, but turned my phone number into “Go to Facebook.” So, yeah, it’s still a work-in-progress… 🙂
Tip: By default, Dictate will automatically insert punctuation in English, but you can choose to say the commands yourself. If you want to do this, make sure you click that button before you start.
Learn more and download the Microsoft Dictate add-in here. >>
Just put those old records back on the shelf, ’cause you don’t need ’em anymore. Bob Seger, one of the biggest name streaming holdouts, has changed his tune (ba-da-bump!) and released his catalog of thirteen albums and nearly 170 tracks on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Napster, iHeartRadio and Slacker Radio.
Bob Seger releases his music for streaming, at long last (Detroit Free Press, 06/16/17)
Until 11pm PDT tomorrow, June 23, Amazon is offering a deal where you can buy a Kindle Paperwhite E-reader and they’ll throw in 6 months of Kindle Unlimited for free. That’s a savings of almost $60. To get the deal, scroll down a bit on the Paperwhite page to see the promotion and click Add Both to Cart.
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Wasn't there a similar voice dictation plugin in Windows 7? I remember messing around with voice input on my old Windows 7 desktop but I can't quite remember how I did it.
I don't remember. I wasn't doing voice dictation when I was using Windows 7.