Imagine talking to your computer and having it transcribe everything you say without even touching the keyboard. That's the promise of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 ($99.99 for the Standard Edition, up to $1,599 for specialized medical and legal editions), the latest in a long line of voice-recognition software packages that have steadily gotten better with each iteration. I've been using NaturallySpeaking since version 7, so I eagerly anticipated the release of this latest version.

The developer of the software, Nuance, called us and boasted about the most significant advance of the software: accuracy. We found it odd that the company's hype for version 9.5 claimed accuracy of “up to 99%,” and now this allegedly more accurate version 10 touts accuracy of “up to 98%.” Although we've learned not to take those quotes too seriously, Nuance also says this version is faster. Because I use NaturallySpeaking every day, the prospect of better accuracy and faster processing was enticing.

Could Star Trek-like voice recognition finally be here? Click Continue and watch us load up this version of NaturallySpeaking 10, putting it to the acid test.

Skip Basic Training
One of the great benefits of getting started with NaturallySpeaking 10 is that you don't really need to train it for basic understanding of your speech. It bursts out of the gate already able to perform at remarkable accuracy. Of course, once you've taught it all of the specialized terms you use, it's able to play along with you even better. It usually does that well, but there are exceptions. For example, I often use the term "1080p" when writing about high-definition television, and NaturallySpeaking had no idea what I was talking about. It's not perfect — even after training, it's still not able to perfectly understand that term; insisting on capitalizing the “p” and putting a period after it.

Stitch in Time Saves Nine
Indeed, NaturallySpeaking is not perfect, but it's close. You still need to train it a bit for top performance, but this version is noticeably more accurate than its predecessor, and even more importantly, it's faster. Now when you dig into the menus and set the software for maximum recognition at the expense of speed, it still keeps up with your voice perfectly, no matter how quickly you speak. This is a significant improvement over version 9.5.

Bulk Up That PC
Just like previous versions, you're better off if you have a powerful PC. For our testing, we used a quad-core HP workstation, and we also tested it on a cheap Core 2 Duo laptop. The performance was much snappier on the quad core machine, but the laptop was also able to perform speech recognition admirably, albeit slightly slower.

Act Naturally
The other main new feature is quite amusing: the ability to use "natural language" to bark out commands such as “Search Web for MacBook Pro,” or “search Wikipedia for Thomas Jefferson.” Right away, NaturallySpeaking opens your default browser (even Firefox!) and searches the Web for you. How fun! It feels like there’s a ghost in the machine. That novel ability, in addition to lots of hands-free commands that let you navigate your PC without even touching the keyboard, make this application compelling for those who can't or don't want to type.

Real Time Saver
While NaturallySpeaking 10 still isn't quite up to the level of perfection I’d like to see in voice-recognition software, it delivers on its promise of better accuracy and speed. Even if you're the fastest typist in the world, you may not be able to keep up with the speed of natural speech. But NaturallySpeaking can.

Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Standard Edition