![dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HucAAOSwRgtiD6LX/s-l1600.jpg)
Much has changed in the world of voice recognition technology since 1982, but one consistent element has been the fact that Nuance and a few key competitors have invented and continue to develop, the algorithms and the software that can be found in literally all of the technology that utilizes speech recognition to this day. This seminal voice recognition software was originally developed by Dragon Systems, a company founded by James and Janet Baker in 1982, but it has been lovingly and carefully nurtured and developed by Nuance Communications for the last decade. But as of 1997, we have been able to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
![dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition](https://classroomteacher.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Dragon-Feature-Matrix-premium-vs-home-1024x838.png)
Not only did the transcription have to be accurate, it also had to be discreet until about 1997, one had to rely on faithful and trustworthy assistants (or secretaries back in the Pleistocene when yours truly grew up).
![dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition dragon naturallyspeaking 12 premium edition](https://s1.manualzz.com/store/data/002802721_1-c3edb9138424e2ffbf005d86f9ee6296.png)
Heck, even before computers were ever conceived, science fiction writers and dreamers have prophesied the day when one could just speak to machines or automata and that speech would automatically be recognized as specific commands and acted upon, or in the world of business, captured, transcribed perfectly and faithfully, and then processed in whatever manner was appropriate for the business purpose one had in mind. For as long as there have been computers, humans have hoped for the ability to communicate with them the way that Dave Bowman was able to communicate with the Hal 9000 in “ 2001: A Space Odyssey”, or the crews of the Enterprise with their silicon shipmates in the various versions of “Star Trek”. We wanted so much for the technology to be usable, for it to work! For speech to be a serious input source of actual utility, like a keyboard or mouse. Back in the misty dawn of the modern age, voice recognition software and the technologies that incorporated it fell so far short of the advertised and often over-hyped mark, that bummed out users were left to cry in their beer. Have you ever had a tool that was so painfully cool that even though it was a giant pain in the ass to use, you still loved it so much that you used it all of the time anyway? That is how this reviewer felt about computer voice\speech recognition.