Nuance Introduces New Capabilities and Licensing Program Designed for K-12 Teachers, Students and Administrators in Dragon NaturallySpeaking Version 11

Supports Younger Students Better Than Ever, Allowing Students of All Abilities to Complete Written Assignments and Control Their Computers Simply By Speaking

BURLINGTON, Mass., August 5, 2010 — In conjunction with its launch of Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 11, Nuance Communications, Inc. today introduced a series of new capabilities and licensing programs designed specifically with the needs of K-12 school communities in mind. The new version includes a more intuitive user interface, a new accent model tuned for younger speakers, and special pricing for individual students and entire schools. The Dragon 11 family, the world’s best-selling speech recognition software, enables students, teachers and school administrators to simply speak their minds and watch their spoken words appear accurately in essays, reports, reviews, emails and more – faster and with less frustration than typing.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking can help to generate a new excitement for writing and learning for students of all abilities, including many who struggle to reach their full potential with the written word. Dragon NaturallySpeaking has long been a trusted alternative for students with physical disabilities to access computers, but in recent years it has also become a critical tool for all students, particularly in the areas of reading, writing and spelling. Dragon’s fast, accurate dictation capabilities make it easier and far less frustrating for students to transform thoughts into text without spelling worries or fear of the blank page. By eliminating the physical demands of typing and the cognitive barriers to written communication, Dragon offers an alternative for students to deliver more thorough written work since they can focus on their thoughts, rather than the worry of transferring those thoughts to the written word. This “brain to PC” approach can be particularly useful for students with language-based learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dysgraphia, but it can also make writing more natural and enjoyable for students of any ability.

“The big pain before was getting my thoughts on paper,” said Gregory Robinson, a 12-year old student and Dragon NaturallySpeaking user. “Now with Dragon, I can just say it and have it down on a piece of paper.”

(See more of Gregory’s story in his own words, and the words of his teachers and parents, here.)

“Dragon has a long history of helping students succeed by making it easier to get their thoughts on paper, but it hasn’t always been easy for schools to make Dragon available to every student,” said Peter Mahoney, senior vice president and general manager, Dragon, Nuance. “In Dragon 11, we’ve not only made the product itself smarter and easier to use, but we’ve lowered our pricing and created a new K-12 School Licensing program in an effort to make Dragon available for all students and faculty within a school. Ultimately, we want to make Dragon a standard part of every student’s learning toolbox.”

For educators and administrators at all levels who face the challenge of larger classes and more paperwork, Dragon can deliver a real boost to productivity. By simply speaking, educators and administrators can provide more detailed and comprehensive feedback on student papers, communicate more effectively with students and colleagues, and even speed up the development of lesson plans, research projects and individualized education plans (IEPs). Students and teachers can even use Dragon for sending emails or instant messages, enabling full participation in group projects that require ongoing communication, collaboration, and information sharing.

See a college professor talk about how he uses Dragon to respond to student papers here.

Dragon for Individuals or Schools

Nuance offers both individual and volume license discounts for students, teachers and administrators. The Dragon Premium Student/Teacher boxed edition for individuals is offered at $99, and you can find more information on Nuance’s education page here. Nuance also offers several academic volume license program options, including a new School License program that provides Dragon for up to 250 students using school-owned or leased computers. This single-site program, designed exclusively for K-12 schools, offers both value and flexibility, allowing schools to combine both PC- and Mac-based speech recognition products. For additional information on features, editions, pricing and new education licensing programs, please visit http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/industries/education/default.asp.

Dragon 11 is Simply Smarter Speech Recognition:
It’s been more than 13 years since Dragon first debuted, and millions of hours of data, decades of research and hundreds of the best brains in speech science have made Dragon simply the smartest speech recognition available today. Despite the sophisticated nature of speech recognition, Dragon’s “brain” works behind the scenes, so you can focus on creating and communicating by voice at speeds up to three times faster than typing – without the software getting in the way . Key capabilities in Dragon 11 include:

• Accurate and Fast – Dragon 11 is the most accurate speech recognition yet, with an improvement in accuracy of 15 percent compared to Dragon 10. This means Dragon 11 recognizes speech more accurately right out of the box, so people will spend less time correcting recognition errors. Dragon 11 is also faster than previous editions when selecting application menu items by voice or executing voice commands. Dragon 11 also has a special model for younger students that will further improve their accuracy.
• Time-Saving Voice Commands and Shortcuts – Dragon collapses common multi-step tasks on the PC into direct voice commands. You can send emails and schedule meetings, search the Web for information, search your desktop, or even navigate between Windows, simply by saying what you want. Dragon 11 includes even more commands to consolidate multiple mouse clicks and keystrokes into a direct voice command that can be spoken anytime, such as:
  • “Search the Web for global warming impact on fisheries”
  • “Search Amazon for Bluetooth headset”
  • “Search Twitter for haiku”
  • “Search maps for 1600 Pennsylvania Blvd., Washington, DC”
  • “Search Dragon Help for working with GMail”
  • “Send an email to Mike Smith”
  • “Open My Pictures”
  • “List Programs”
• New User Interface – The latest release of Dragon makes it easier than ever to speak your mind and communicate more naturally with: a new Dragon Sidebar to help users discover and remember commands and tips; a richer Help system with new tips, illustrations, tutorials and videos; an updated toolbar that allows users to discover and quickly access important but often-overlooked Dragon features
• Smarter Correcting and Editing – Dragon makes editing and correcting text easy. With Dragon’s Quick Voice Formatting commands, you can issue a simple voice command, such as “Bold Today’s Book Report,” or “Capitalize This Semester’s Syllabus” to make formatting text faster than ever. With Dragon 11, it’s easy to edit or correct a word or phrase if there are multiple matches by displaying a number next to each. In addition, corrections entered using the keyboard (in addition to those made by voice) are used to adapt the user’s profile and boost accuracy. Finally, the Correction Menu now suggests more alternate recognitions by default and enables users to quickly add phrases to the vocabulary, or to prevent an undesired word from being recognized.
• Getting Started with Dragon is Faster and Easier – Establishing a user profile in Dragon is now simple and conversational, and setting up a microphone or new audio source is more clear and straightforward.
• Use Dragon to Transcribe Recorded Audio – With Dragon, you can dictate on the go into a digital voice recorder, and then let Dragon do the work for a quick transcription of your recorded voice. Creating a new user profile for a digital recorder or smartphone, or adding a digital recorder as a new audio source for an existing user profile, is now much faster with Dragon 11: the minimum reading time required to train Dragon with a recorder has been reduced from 15 to 4 minutes.
• Enhanced Hardware and Software Support – Dragon 11 is compatible with Microsoft Office 2010 applications and Full Text Control, Menu Tracking, and Natural Language Commands are supported for Word 2010, Outlook 2010, and Excel 2010. With Dragon 11, users can now comfortably view the Dragon user interface and tutorials on netbook (mini notebook) computers. Finally, Dragon 11 supports OpenOffice Writer with dictation, correction, selection, and playback.

About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance is a leading provider of speech, imaging and customer interaction solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services. For more information, please visit: www.nuance.com.

Trademark reference: Nuance, Dragon, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and the Nuance logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other company names or product names referenced herein may be the property of their respective owners.