Speech Recognition.
BRAIN supports speech recognition. Each command you create is automatically recognized by the speech recognition engine.
Speech is enabled via the Speech settings:
In order for the Robot to recognize your verbal commands however, you must preface them with the name of your Robot. This helps to minimize the Robot responding to unintentional background noise, say from a TV, or other conversation.
For example, let's say you have the command called What time is it?. And you named your Robot Robot. In order for your Robot to respond to that command, you would have to say:
Robot What time is it?
Of course when entering commands into the Robot command panel, you do not need to prefix your commands with your Robots' name. This is necessary only to speech recognition.
TIP: Your Robot's name is set in the Network settings.
Additional words can be added to B.R.A.I.N.'s Custom Dictionary. The Custom Dictionary file is simply a text file and can be found in BRAINs System folder in your My Documents folder.
The Custom Dictionary is useful for adding words to that you might use in response to commands. For example, your name, your city, your zip code, your stock portfolio, etc.
Let's say you had a script called Stocks that checked the stock value for your favorite stock. Let's say that stock was Google. The ticker symbol for Google is GOOG. So, when you say the command Stocks to your Robot, and you are prompted for a stock symbol, you could say Google and the Robot would know you meant GOOG. BRAIN knows then to substitute the word GOOG when you actually said Google.
TIP: Whenever you add words to the Custom Dictionary, you must rebuild the Robot's grammar. (Note: you don't need to do this if you restart BRAIN - it is done automatically).
To rebuild the Robot's grammar, go into the speech settings, and simply uncheck, and re-check the Enabled checkbox for Speech recognition. You'll see a status of the rebuild (which should only take a few seconds), then the Robot should recognize your new words.
A few notes on speech recognition accuracy.
BRAIN uses the Microsoft's speech recognition engine.
Speech recognition quality is dictated by the quality of your microphone, the noise in the environment, and the training you have given the speech recognition engine. It is strongly recommend that you perform the speech training exercise to improve the likelihood of your Robot understanding your speech.
To launch the speech recognition training (as well as to adjust other speech settings), go to the Windows control panel, and click on the Speech icon:
Then click on the Train Profile... button to begin the training.
This should significantly improves BRAINs’ speech recognition accuracy.