"So, I'm reviewing the SpinVox service to show how good a service I think it is. To actually review SpinVox I'm using SpinVox to do it, rather than sitting down and typing out the review which, at the moment, I don't really have time for.
I'm talking to D2, the SpinVox computer, robot, machine, cybernetic life form, I'm not sure what it is, but I'm speaking to it and it's churning away, thinking, processing and about 30 mins after I finish this call I will receive an email which includes the entire transcript of the conversation I have with it, that I'm having with it right now. I feel a touch silly talking to a robot, but in this day and age it happens on an almost daily basis.
Now, during the course of National Novel Writing Month I had very little time to actually blog, I work 9:00 til 6:00 and then in the evenings I spend most of my time actually writing. The SpinVox service was, and is, absolutely perfect. It gives me the opportunity to talk to D2 on the walk down to the tube, which is what I'm doing now, and when I arrive in work, at lunch time I can quickly run a script with WordPress which sends the entire post, which I talked, into a blog post. Pretty, pretty amazing stuff and allowed me to blog over a dozen times in a month whilst writing a novel and taking part in National Novel Writing Month, which to be fare, is probably the most amount of blogging I've ever actually done, because normally I post about once a week, three times a month. Where as now it can be almost every day, pretty outstanding stuff. All in all I'd say SpinVox is a service to people who needs to blog quickly."
So above is the post that I dictated this morning, I like SpinVox, it's awesome. Something I don't think I pointed out above, but is hinted at, is that I do this via my mobile phone. I call a number, speak to the robot and it sends me the transcript, this isn't sittind down in front of the computer and talking out a post. That's why it's so convenient.
There are a few niggles though, one is the three minute cut off, as you can see, the post above ends pretty abruptly. It’s a slight problem, but completely understandable, SpinVox isn’t designed for extended blogging just small updates. Maybe a little beep telling me I have 10 seconds left or something would be a good idea though, as I have to guess how long I've got left otherwise. But the average person speaks at 3 words per second, so 180 seconds is 540 words, which is a decent length for a post, and means you dont have to spend too much time editing.
The only other problem is that D2 sometimes doesn’t get what I’m saying, I suppose that’s inevitable and they will continue to work on the software that turns human speech into text. I have posted the unedited version of what I get sent by D2 below, so you can compare and see how I usually need to spend 5 minutes doing a bit of editing. This is however, largely to do with me not making much sense when trying to talk a blog post, rather than type consolidated thoughts.
But yeah, thanks to the SpinVox guys and for letting my try it out during NaNoWriMo, and to Mr Whatley for sorting me out. I'm definitely going to continue using it. I will be posting about my experience about writing a novel in 30 days, and the end product, when it’s finished, which will hopefully be by the end of the week or early next week.
Original transcription.
"So I'm reviewing the SpinVox I miss it's how good a service I think it is. To actually review SpinVox I'm using SpinVox at the same time to do it in fact rather than sitting down and typing out the review which at the moment I don't really have time for. I'm talking to D2 the SpinVox computer robot machine cybernetic life form I'm not sure what it is but I'm speaking to it and it's turning away, thinking, processing and about 30 mins after I finish this call I will receive an email which includes the entire transcript of the conversation I have with it and I'm having with it now. I feel a little bit silly talking to a robot but in this day and age it happens on a day to day basis almost. Now during the course of National Novel Writing Month I had very little time to actually brog(?) this is I work 9:00 til 6:00 and then in the evenings either spending all of my time actually writing a novel which is what I do most of the time leaving me very little time to actually brog(?). The SpinVox service was absolutely perfect it gave me the opportunity to talk to R2 on the walk down to the tube which is what I'm doing now and when I arrived in work at lunch time I could quickly run a script with word press which would send the entire pros which I talked to it into a brog(?) post. Pretty pretty amazing stuff really and allows me to brog(?) almost a dozen(?) times in a month also whilst writing a novel and taking part in National Novel Writing Month which to be fare is probably the most poetic brogging(?) I've ever actually done because normally I post about once a week twice a month. So it's ___ almost every day as well as written the novel pretty outstanding stuff all and all I'd say SpinVox is a service to people who needs to brog(?) quickly."
Spoken through SpinVox
