Well, not exactly. In fact, not even close. Much discussion circles around audio-to-text conversion, especially in the disability services community. Bill Gates even believes (and has believed for more than 10 years) that we are on the very cusp of making audio into text a reality for everyone. That could mean no more typing!
Unfortunately, the technology really isn’t there yet, despite the best efforts of software developers over the last fifteen years.
The best tool for turning audio into text right now is Dragon Naturally Speaking version 9. This software, once installed on a computer, allows the user to talk into a standard free-standing or headset-style microphone connected to the computer and watch words appear on the screen in a word processor. As of version 9, Dragon works better out of the box than any previous version. That being said, it is not fool-proof, and it still requires that the user “train” it to understand how they pronounce words. This takes several hours, in general, and the program continues to “learn” as you use it over time. Additionally, it must be used in a quiet environment with limited background noise to achieve the best results.
Another product that is readily available is Via Voice, originally from IBM. This comes free on Windows XP Professional and Vista operating systems. In this case, you do get what you pay for, and Via Voice is a very poor substitute for the $99 Dragon system.
Despite what companies like Sony would like you to believe, there is no way you can take a recorded tape/digital recording of a lecture, presentation, or meeting discussion and turn it into text format with just a software program. Even Dragon, as good as it is, is unable to complete this Herculean feat. Audio recordings are full of “noise,” whether it be the person sitting near the recorder shuffling papers, audience members coughing, the air conditioner running in the corner, etc. Even a relatively careful recording has enough noise in it to confuse the text converter.
We are still a long way from the end of typing on a keyboard.