IBM Ships Talking Word Processor 
by Torsten Busse, IDG News Service 


August 20, 1997
IBM has announced the availability of a general purpose continuous-dictation
product for the consumer market, which allows users to dictate directly into
the Microsoft Word or IBM SpeakPad word processors. 

Now available in American English, IBM's $99 ViaVoice will also be available
for U.K. English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese in September,
company officials said. 

IBM says the product allows users to talk to their computers in a normal
speaking voice, entering text at up to 140 words per minute. 

Beginning in October, IBM's Lotus Development subsidiary will also offer a
customized version of ViaVoice integrated with its Lotus Word Pro word
processor, which is included in the Lotus SmartSuite 97 application suite. 

ViaVoice has a "vocabulary expander" feature that can analyze all documents
stored on a particular PC and automatically add frequently used or unique
words, such as names or products, to the base vocabulary. The total
vocabulary can contain up to 64,000 words. 

ViaVoice supports Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, runs on a Pentium
MMX-166 or -150 system, and requires a sound card and 125MB of free hard
drive space, plus 32MB of RAM for Win 95 or 48MB for NT.