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Review July 25, 2003
Speereo Software UK R&D |
Reviewed item (Product ID Speereo Voice Translator V1.5 Retail Price $40.00 USD)
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Voice
translator lets you select pre-entered sentences in English and can speak them
out loud in many different languages. You can choose
sentence categories such as communications, travel, hotel, sports and many more.
Each category also has a few subcategories. Once you chose the category, you can
tap on one of the listed sentences, or hold the record button (you can assign
this function to a different button as well) and speak out one of the displayed
sentences. I found the voice recognition to be extremely accurate. The software recognized all of the 20 sentences I said the first time in a quiet environment. |
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The startup time is quite long taking 15 seconds before the program appears even on a 400MHz Pocket PC. The buttons lack tool tips making it hard to know what each button does. You can choose sentence categories such as means of communications, travel, hotel, sports and many more. Each category also has a few subcategories. Once you chose the category, you can tap on one of the listed sentences, or hold the record button (you can assign this function to a different button as well) and speak out one of the displayed sentences, I found the voice recognition to be extremely accurate, recognizing all of the 20 sentences I said the first time in a quiet environment. Once you have tapped or spoken a sentence, it is displayed in the other language on the screen, as well as spoken out loud. Although the voice seems to be recorded, (as opposed to synthesized voice like many programs use) it can be hard to understand. Since the sentence also appears on the screen, this isn’t really a problem. |
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The program appears full screen and doesn’t have any way of being minimized but tapping the top left of the screen (where the start menu normally is) does bring up the start menu. The task bar is not refreshed and the top of the program remains instead of the taskbar when using wisbar (when no taskbar replacement programs are running, the taskbar re-appears normally). Since the program uses its own list boxes as opposed to standard windows one, it does make scrolling through the sentences lag a bit, and the scroll bars seem buggy, sometimes stopping halfway when you are already at the bottom of the list. |
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I would rate this program 7 out of 10. The voice can be hard to understand and you are limited to the preset sentences only. I would also prefer that the program ran in a normal window rather than a full screen. Reviewed by Sacha Crompton |
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Added Notes - By Bob Katayama Voice Translator comes with about 2,000 of the most commonly used business, technical, legal terms, and medical words. Including conversational phrases, idioms, and some slang are arranged in 16 main categories and 87 sub-categories by subject, such as travel, useful, city, buy food, shopping, health and entertainment. Currently these languages are supported. Spanish, German, French, Italian and Russian According to the manufacturer, about twenty new languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Hindi, Portuguese, and others are expected to come during this year. Voice translator works out of the package without training like traditional voice recognition software. Available online through www.speereo.com
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Reviewed and Written by Sacha Crompton Edited by Bob Katayama
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Copyright 2003 www.technobrains.com |
