Application centric speech recognition for your desktop: simon 0.3.0 released

The new version 0.3.0 of the open source speech recognition simon has been released and boasts the all new scenario system allowing you to build your own customized speech recognition system with just a few mouseclicks.

With simon you can control your computer with your voice. You can open programs, URLs, type configurable text snippets, simulate shortcuts, control the mouse and keyboard and much more.

Because of simons architecture, it is not bound to a specific language and can be used with any dialect. It is also specifically designed to handle speech impairments which makes simon a viable alternative to conventional input methods especially for physically disabled people and senior citizens.

simon is based off the open source large vocabulary continuous speech recognition engine Julius.

New in simon 0.3

simon 0.3 introduces an application centric approach to speech recognition by using packaged use cases of the speech recognition called "scenarios". Scenarios contain the complete configuration for one specific task like controlling Firefox or using the voice controlled on screen keyboard. These scenarios can then be shared with other simon users and are collected in a central online repository which can be accessed directly from within the application.

Besides the scenario system the new version also provides the user not only with the possibility of creating his own model through training but also to use an existing acoustic model (base model) to get started even quicker - entirely without training.If the user wants more control or would like to improve recognition accuracy, personalized training is possible through the optional HTK (not included in simon due to license restrictions). simon then offers to adapt the used base model to your own voice or to create a new model entirely from scratch.

Additionally, we have been working hard to make simon even easier to use. Some of the more notable results of these efforts are the new introductory wizard that guides you through the initial setup as well as the speech model generation adapter that automatically fix a vast variety of common beginners mistakes for you.

Furthermore simon 0.3 introduces three new applications to the suite. Sam, an acoustic modeling tool is geared towards professionals who want to tinker with their speech model and get the best recognition out of it. It is also a great tool to create and test large models which can then be distributed as base models for other simon users. To create base models you also need a lot of speech data which can be easily collected through the newly introduced combo of ssc and sscd. ssc stands for simon sample collector and is the client to the sscd server. Together they provide a powerful, cross platform tool to collect samples from lots of different speakers - even allowing you to record with multiple microphones and / or sound cards simultaneously.

Demonstration

Readers of the RSS feed: Watch it on Youtube

Download

You can download simon 0.3 as source archive but there are also packages available for Windows, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu on our Sourceforge page. Up to date installation instructions are available on the simon listens wiki.