Putting speech recognition technology to work. I'm Fred Fishkin with Bootcamp, a report on computers and technology. More powerful computers and improved software mean speech recognition technology is finally getting useful. IBM, Dragon Systems and Lernout and Hauspie are three of the leaders making programs that can take your spoken words and translate them into text on your computer. And you can do your speaking or dictating while your away from your PC. Lernout and Hauspie, or L&H for short, has created a nifty bundle that includes a thin, lightweight Olympus digital recorder that slips into your pocket. Klaus Schleicher of L&H says it's the Voice Xpress Mobile Professional...

"I use it for example in the car in the morning or if I have some ideas, I always have this little, only 2 ounce recorder from Olympus with me and I record my ideas or I record some thoughts I have and then I transcribe it into text."

The recorder, which can store up to 75 minutes of high quality speech, plugs into the serial port of your computer. You download the file and the software turns it into text. It's not perfect, but much better than speech recognition products were able to deliver a year or two ago. The price is under 200 dollars...typically what the recorder alone costs...

"So what we've done here, we've combined a great recorder from Olympus with the voice recognition software for pretty much the same price."

You can find more information at lhsl.com