Speech to Text in Surface is Built in

A while back I was complaining that there was nothing like Siri on my Surface. I was wrong. I happened to go into the classic control panel for something entirely different and found Speech Recognition . So I started exploring.

I selected Start Speech Recognition and was prompted to select a microphone type. I didn’t know for sure so selected the bottom choice for external and Windows did the right thing.

 

 

After reading the phrase, I was guided to a rather long tutorial. The graphics shown were a little odd as they were obviously for the x86 version of Windows 8 since they were showing WordPad. However, it was worth believing that Speech Recognition would work on Surface.

After going through the tutorial, I said “Start Listening” and then “Open Word”. Word 2013 RT opened. I started dictating. While slower than Siri and far less accurate, the words I spoke appeared in the document. Eureka. Maybe training will improve this. I hope so.

Next, I tried a voice command from the Start Screen, “Open Mail”. Here’s what happened:

 

While in one of my mail account, I decided to say “Compose”. A new window opened where I could DICTATE an email. I’ve blocked out my email address, but here is the screen shot:

 

I’m off to explore more, but clearly I’m on to something here.