How do you disable speech recognition?

[Ken Springer]

A friend of mine set up speech recognition on her computer, but was
unaware of exactly what was happening.

I don't have a Win7 machine to experiment with at the moment, so...

Apparently, she gave the program permission to access emails, documents,
etc. We want to undo all of this, since the concern is MS software
phoning home with her personal info and such. Apple's speech
recognition does do this.

We've unchecked emails and documents in Properties.

Is there anything else hidden somewhere that should be unchecked/removed?



--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 20.0
Thunderbird 17.0.5
LibreOffice 4.0.3.3

 

[Rob]

A friend of mine set up speech recognition on her computer, but was
unaware of exactly what was happening.

I don't have a Win7 machine to experiment with at the moment, so...

Apparently, she gave the program permission to access emails, documents,
etc. We want to undo all of this, since the concern is MS software
phoning home with her personal info and such. Apple's speech
recognition does do this.

We've unchecked emails and documents in Properties.

Is there anything else hidden somewhere that should be unchecked/removed?

Just say to the computer "disable speech recognition" in a clear,
steady voice..

Sorry - couldn't resist!

 

[Ken Springer]

Just say to the computer "disable speech recognition" in a clear,
steady voice..

Sorry - couldn't resist!

LMAO!


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 20.0
Thunderbird 17.0.5
LibreOffice 4.0.3.3

 

[Jeff Layman]

Just say to the computer "disable speech recognition" in a clear,
steady voice..

Sorry - couldn't resist!

Well, you may /think/ you were joking, but this is from the "Speech
Recognition" chapter in Ed Bott's "Windows 7 Inside Out":

"When Speech Recognition is running, you see the capsule-shaped
microphone interface
pinned to the top of the screen . When the microphone icon is blue and
the word Listening
appears, the speech recognition engine is hanging on your every word—or
for that matter,
on stray sounds, which it will try to convert into text or commands . If
you’re not actively
dictating, click the microphone button (or say “Stop listening”) . The
microphone icon turns
gray ."

So it's not "disable speech recognition", but just "stop listening"!

 

[bevoveb]

Well, you may /think/ you were joking, but this is from the "Speech Recognition" chapter in Ed
Bott's "Windows 7 Inside Out":

"When Speech Recognition is running, you see the capsule-shaped microphone interface
pinned to the top of the screen . When the microphone icon is blue and the word Listening
appears, the speech recognition engine is hanging on your every word—or for that matter,
on stray sounds, which it will try to convert into text or commands . If you’re not actively
dictating, click the microphone button (or say “Stop listening”) . The microphone icon turns
gray ."

So it's not "disable speech recognition", but just "stop listening"!

But as Fats Waller once said, "One never knows, do one?"

 

[philo]

Well, you may /think/ you were joking, but this is from the "Speech
Recognition" chapter in Ed Bott's "Windows 7 Inside Out":

"When Speech Recognition is running, you see the capsule-shaped
microphone interface
pinned to the top of the screen . When the microphone icon is blue and
the word Listening
appears, the speech recognition engine is hanging on your every word—or
for that matter,
on stray sounds, which it will try to convert into text or commands . If
you’re not actively
dictating, click the microphone button (or say “Stop listening”) . The
microphone icon turns
gray ."

So it's not "disable speech recognition", but just "stop listening"!

I've been surprised at how many times I've thought of something absurd,
only to find out, it was not so absurd.


Like the time I was in a candy shop and asked for a licorice rat.
The clerk held up two of them and asked me,"Black or red?"

I was so stunned I bought one of each and gave them to my daughter.

 

[Paul]

LMAO!

Go to the Speech Recognition control panel, click Advanced.
There is some button there, mentioning a "Startup" item. Untick
the box.

What that should do, is prevent "sapisvc" from running.

If later, you go to Start and type "speech", to start recognition,
it is going to complain that something is missing. That was partial
proof it was de-fanged.

With Speech Recognition enabled on my laptop, and a microphone
plugged in, scratching the surface of the microphone causes the
%CPU of sapisvc to rise quite high (80% or so). That appears
to be the thing that is listening in an active way.

I tried looking in Services, but there is no Speech Recognition
that I could see.

Maybe with Autoruns, I would have been able to find a startup item
for the sapisvc, but I didn't bother to test that. I'm sure it's
buried in the registry somewhere.

I also tried Programs and Features, looked in Windows Features,
but I didn't see an install/uninstall in there either. That would
be for well behaved optional items, if you wanted to remove them in
a more definitive way.

I set a Restore Point before experimenting, and restored
to clean up whatever mess was made. I don't think Microsoft
is listening in right now Just my emails, chats, Store
activity.

The thing is, my test microphone is so poor, the only thing it
transfers successfully, is a scratching sound It's a Logitech
headset with microphone - one of the poorer purchases I've ever made.

My best microphone, is one made by Apple, and it was included in the
box with one of their computers. (Not all their microphones are
winners - another one of theirs sucks.) It runs off a 5V feed and
a four contact TRS connector. I chopped the connector off the
end (not PC compatible), connected a 5V wall adapter to the
amp in the microphone, added a new three contact TRS, and
that's my best microphone now. If I ever needed to test speech
recognition, that's the one I'd use. Virtually all the
other microphones I have here, are trash.

I can trust the Logitech for testing, because all it can register,
is scratching sounds. Ya can't "listen in" with that one
Unless the NSA likes scratching sounds.

Paul

 

[Ken Springer]

Go to the Speech Recognition control panel, click Advanced.
There is some button there, mentioning a "Startup" item. Untick
the box.

Thanks, Paul, I'll pass that along.

I see there's a couple of options she didn't tell me about, I'll make
sure everything is unchecked.

I also tried Programs and Features, looked in Windows Features,
but I didn't see an install/uninstall in there either. That would
be for well behaved optional items, if you wanted to remove them in
a more definitive way.

She didn't find one there, either.

I set a Restore Point before experimenting, and restored
to clean up whatever mess was made. I don't think Microsoft
is listening in right now Just my emails, chats, Store
activity.

I think she really needs to take her laptop, reinstall everything from
the restore partition, and start over. She's always complaining about
updates. She runs it differently than most, and although she's more
knowledgeable than most, sometimes she comes up short on some basics.

<snip>

Would you have any opinion on speech recognition software, good or bad?
I've got a personal project I'm fleshing out, and speech recognition
software will be a plus. Unlike a lot of people who start something,
then realize they don't have the tools needed to do the job well and
easily, I locate and gather up my tools before I start.

And to that end, if you're doing a college paper or similar, I'm finding
the screenwriting program Scrivener to be really good for something like
this. I'm still using the demo, but it looks good. The weak point may
turn out to be placing images in the final document.

Also, hoping to do it on my Mac, but if I can't, then it will be Windows 7.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.4
Firefox 20.0
Thunderbird 17.0.5
LibreOffice 4.0.3.3

 

[Paul]

Thanks, Paul, I'll pass that along.

I see there's a couple of options she didn't tell me about, I'll make
sure everything is unchecked.



She didn't find one there, either.


I think she really needs to take her laptop, reinstall everything from
the restore partition, and start over. She's always complaining about
updates. She runs it differently than most, and although she's more
knowledgeable than most, sometimes she comes up short on some basics.

<snip>

Would you have any opinion on speech recognition software, good or bad?
I've got a personal project I'm fleshing out, and speech recognition
software will be a plus. Unlike a lot of people who start something,
then realize they don't have the tools needed to do the job well and
easily, I locate and gather up my tools before I start.

And to that end, if you're doing a college paper or similar, I'm finding
the screenwriting program Scrivener to be really good for something like
this. I'm still using the demo, but it looks good. The weak point may
turn out to be placing images in the final document.

Also, hoping to do it on my Mac, but if I can't, then it will be Windows 7.

From memory, the only one I know of is Dragon Naturally Speaking.
All I know is the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Naturally_Speaking

You can look through the list for more of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_speech_recognition_software

Paul