John Lamansky

I was reading about the new System.Speech namespace in the .NET Framework 3.0 and I thought, “Cool, it looks like I’ll be able to do another version of my BERT program.”

Here’s how my BERT test works in 3 easy steps:

1. You speak a sentance into your attached microphone.
2. BERT uses Windows’ speech-to-text functionality to try to figure out what you said.
3. BERT uses Windows’ text-to-speech functionality to say what Windows thinks you said back at you.

Windows XP, in short, fails miserably; although it does make for a good laugh.

We’ll see if Vista fares better.

Though being a relatively old article (February 2006), I thought this MSDN New Zealand newsletter article was worth mentioning. While Googling to see if there was a way to use XP’s text-to-speech capabilities using the .NET Framework, I stumbled across this article that talked about the System.Speech namespace that will debut in .NET Framework 3.0 (a.k.a. WinFX):

System.Speech… allows developers to easily speech-enable Windows Forms applications and apps based on WinFX in both Vista and Windows XP. In addition, there’s an updated COM Speech API (SAPI 5.3) to give native code access to the enhanced speech capabilities of the platform.

Speech technology encompasses two technologies: synthesizers and recognizers. A speech synthesizer takes text as input and produces an audio stream as output. Speech synthesis is also referred to as text-to-speech (TTS). A speech recognizer, on the other hand, does the opposite. It takes an audio stream as input, and turns it into a text transcription.

Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 was released today. The SuperSite for Windows review concludes:

Internet Explorer 7 RC1 is faster, more stable, and better looking than previous IE 7 betas, so it’s a required update for any users who installed IE 7 Beta 3 or earlier. As for IE 6 users, I think it’s both safe and prudent to migrate to IE 7 now: You’ll be able to upgrade to the final version fairly effortlessly and the security enhancements and new functionality should win over even the most jaded. It’s not a perfect browser, but IE 7 is hugely improved, and even in this prerelease version is worth considering. I don’t think there’s enough there to sway Firefox users quite yet–maybe IE 8?–but IE 7, even in RC1 garb, is looking good. Recommended.

Click below for 8 Excel-lent screenshots of Ribbon-y goodness. Enjoy!

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Office 2007 has a nifty new setup wizard that looks, well, almost Mac-like. Check it out:

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From a PCWorld article:

A new game development platform from Microsoft allows anyone to create games for its Xbox 360 console, the company said today [August 14].

Typically, console games are designed by large studios that must pay high prices to buy development kits in order to write games for consoles. Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio Express is a new development kit that will be released in beta form in August. It will be available for free to anyone using a Windows XP PC. The kit is designed for game developer novices as well as studios, Microsoft said.

[…]

The XNA Game Studio Express development environment is based on Visual Studio Express and .NET, and allows developers to create games simultaneously for Xbox 360 and Windows XP.

Microsoft expects the final non-beta version of the development platform to become available by the end of the year. Another version of XNA Game Studio Express designed for professional game developers will become available in early 2007, the company said.

The part about simultaneous Xbox/Windows development sounds pretty cool. It’ll be interesting to see whether this platform takes off with game developers.

Here it is: 8 screenshots, one for each tab of the Word 2007 Ribbon (not including the “context tabs”). Enjoy!

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For feature #1, I’m going to be talking about the Ribbon: the revolutionary new UI that will, for the most part, be replacing menus and toolbars throughout the Office 2007 suite.

With the new Ribbon, commands such as Paste and Find are now categorized into tabs and further categorized into groups. (Click here for a screenshot of what the Ribbon looks like in Microsoft Word.)

To sum it up in four words: I really like it. It feels more natural to use than complex dialog boxes, and already I’ve discovered a some cool features that were previously unknown to me. That may be because they are indeed new features, or maybe because those features which are now prominently featured on the Ribbon were scattered across and hidden deep within the Office 2003 UI.

On the other hand, there are other features that I have trouble finding right away; however, Microsoft does include help documentation that includes a list of the old Office 2003 commands and their new Ribbon locations, which is really nice.

So although the Ribbon will help us find new features, I think it’s also going to take a while to re-find the features we’re already familiar with.

Though using the Ribbon is a little different at first, you easily get used to it. Soon we’ll probably wonder how we lived without it.

I’ll be posting screenshots of what the Ribbon looks like in the various Office 2007 applications soon!

I downloaded the Office 2007 beta last week and have been running it alongside my Office 2003 installation. I’ve actually been using Office 2007 instead of Office 2003 whenever possible (except for Outlook, since the 2007 and 2003 versions can’t co-exist on the same system for some reason).

I’ve also been finding lots of cool new features; so I decided it would be neat to do a post series about the new features in Office 2007.

So keep an eye out: the first post in the series will be coming soon!

Yep, I did it - I downloaded the Office 2007 beta before it becomes a paid download tomorrow (Wednesday). And is it cool or what! So far I’ve only tested Word 2007 (which I’m using to write this post), and just that is enough to get me excited. Can’t wait to test out the rest!