Control Searches or Writing With FREE Voice Recognition

Have trouble using keyboards? Either you can’t find a comfortable one, or you never learned to type, or perhaps it just gets painful? Or, you might just be busy doing something else with your hands.

Ever thought about using voice recognition to run your computer and even dictate letters or messages?

I tried out a new (and FREE) Google system today and it worked with a cheap microphone in a room with a loud TV blasting and it worked 100% of the time.

Did you know you can do it for free if you have a microphone and a good one only costs about $10? Better yet a combination headset and microphone such as the $12 SoundBot I use. (See at Bottom of Page or click on link.)

Many versions of Windows include a voice recognition application built right in and it is free to use.

While professional writers may need one of the expensive and powerful voice recognition systems such as the ones from Dragon which I have reviewed over the years for a score of magazines, you may not need that, in fact, you might not even need any which came with your computer!

If you use the www.google.com search engine you may have noticed that the search box now includes a tiny microphone on the right side.

Click on that and you can just speak your search terms as long as you have a microphone.

If you have a Google account, such as a free Gmail account then you have access to FREE word processing and other software in a Google Drive account you may not know you have.

For Voice Typing just look under Tools.

Since you really, really want to be able to use Skype you have probably bought a cheap headset with built in microphone already or if you have a laptop or even some small tablets, there is probably a microphone built right in already.

Easiest way to find out is simply click on that microphone symbol in Google and see what happens.

BTW, if you don’t have a mic you should get a Bluetooth headset for making those hour long calls to the grand kids reading bedtime stories.

If you don’t have Bluetooth in your computer a USB adapter will run you another $9 or so. I use this one from soundbot, it costs about $8 and is very tiny - one of my desktops lacked Bluetooth. (See at Bottom of Page or click on link.)