Problems with tablet microphone

[RedWall]

When in my office and connected to the internet, my microphone works fine in 3D and I'm able to use it to input text. As soon as I disconnect from my network, the microphone no longer works in 3D.

Other information:
1) My Toshiba Thrive has a microphone on the home screen and when I activate it and speak, it translates my speech to text and opens a Google browser with a new search on the text I spoke. This does not work when I'm not connected to the internet.

2) I downloaded a sound recorder app and it works fine either way - connected or not connected to my network.

Is it possible that 3D is using the same setting for operation as the Google enabled microphone which is part of the system?

Thanks for any help.

Wayne G
RED WALL Pro

[Donna]

Input and keyboard options are always handled by the OS

[RedWall]

Thank you Donna,

Is anyone else having trouble using the microphone for text input in the field, when not connected to a network (on a tablet)?

Is anyone out there using speech to text input on a tablet? If so, what version of the OS are you using? I'm running Android version 3.2.1

Any help is appreciated.

Wayne G
RED WALL Pro

[Paul Bousquet]

Wayne

As far as I know and from my experience, you need to be connected to the internet for the speech input to work. If I tap on the moicrophone while disconnected from the internet, I get the following message
COULD NOT CONNECT.
Know I have a tablet with 4G so I can pretty much use anywhere as long as I get a decent signal.
I use a Samsumg Galaxy 10.1 with Honeycomb 3.2 OS wit a Gumdrop rugged case and really enjoy it
Paul
www.expressreport.com

[RedWall]

Thank you Paul. That is the information I was looking for. I get the same error msg. "Cannot Connect".

I have been trying to determine if the operating system's speech to text converter is dependent on a word search/look-up requiring a connection to the internet, or if it is configurable to be a local operation only. So far, through much time spent searching, I have not been able to determine.

Thanks again Paul,

Wayne G

First, I have to say that you guys are already ahead of me on this issue. Although, I have been doing a lot of Speech to Text using the purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking software (very, very powerful). It is all 'local-based' requiring no internet connectivity.

With reference to your situation, my main point is that Dragon has a free I-Phone App called "Dragon Dictation" that can do Voice to Text and send emails and text messages, etc... HOWEVER, the I-Phone Dragon Dictation App MUST BE HOOKED TO THE INTERNET (either wi-fi OR via Cell Data). It is apparently clueless on the translation if it is not able to communicate with Dragon's main server somewhere......

I am assuming that you are encountering something similar to this, whereby your Voice-to-Text must also be connected to the internet, one way or another. I think the key is that 'whatever' Voice to Text software you use, THE TRANSLATION PROCESS MUST BE 'LOCAL-BASED' (IE: on your device).

Dragon Naturally Speaking (Premium Edition) is about $150-200. BUT, with the Premium Edition, you can use a 'ton' of different digital recorders that Dragon Endorses to record your Speech in the field, then translate it back to text on a PC, even while you are still n the field. Then, I just cut and paste that text into my report. (Not as good as direct/lice Voice to Text in the field, but certainly much better than writing or trying to type in lengthy notes on a hand held.)

Let me know if this helps,
Ridney

[Donna]

Android already has voice to text built in, so there's no need for a separate app (and WP7 also has similar voice to text options built for texting, etc. as well). But yes, just like the "mobile" dragon software you mention, they all would need internet access to work on such devices. Remember you are really carrying around a mini-computer that just doesn't have the horsepower to do the complex processing (it can't even run regular full-fledged programs like a regular PC can), so that process gets outsourced to heavy-lifting cloud servers that can do it and then send the results back. Hence, you need that internet connection when you want to use it. It's fast and very cool though. It's truly amazing what these devices can do these days.


And yes if you are in an area with sketchy service or some reason and don't always have internet access, you could always use one of the recorder apps out there to just make a few recordings and bookmark the spots in your report, and then transcribe those on a regular PC.
But it shouldn't take much to also just use the built-in keyboard/swipe options to enter the bits of minor detail you may need to fill info into your pre-written and composed comments in your inspection forms that you just quickly tap off. And that way you're just done on site. You can also set up sub-level narratives to select common fill-in items into placeholders in your longer comments.