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MacSpeech, Inc. Wednesday announced iDictate for Mac OS X, thus extending its TalkAnywhere technology to Apple's most recent operating system. iDictate is designed as an introduction to the power of speech as a means to enter text into the computer. With iDictate, the user simply speaks where they used to type.

iDictate is similar to iListen but lacks many of the command and control functions. It will also be less expensive than iListen.

iDictate is being demonstrated at Macworld and will ship later this spring. As an introductory offer, all registered users of iListen will be able to download a Preview Release of iDictate for Mac OS X as soon as it is available later this month.

iDictate feature summary:

• Continuous Speech Recognition - Dictation in normal tone of voice and pace.
• Direct Dictation - Dictate and correct text directly in virtually any application.
• Large Vocabulary - Active vocabulary of greater than 30,000 words. 300,000 word background vocabulary developed in partnership with Oxford University Press.
• Multiple Users - Multiple users create their own speech files on the same computer.
• Multiple Languages - iDicate will be introduced simultaneously for US and UK English. Other languages, including German, French, Dutch, Flemish, Austrian German, North American Spanish, Spanish, and Italian will be made available later in 2002.
• Platform Compatible - Profiles created in iDictate can be easily transferred for use with iListen in Mac OS 9.

In separate announcements, MacSpeech also announced the release of iListen 1.2, the formation of MacSpeech, Ltd, their European distribution arm, and the forthcoming UK version of iListen. MacSpeech also makes ListenDo!, a free PlainTalk enhancement for voice command of your Mac, and iListen with exclusive TalkAnywhere dictation.