Using USB MP3 player/recorder for text transcription

Few months back I happened to read the following post on CEO of "Goal Free Living":


"Here is a photo of Stephen Shapiro’s high tech car from his 2003 trip — well, at least back then it was. With a desk built into the passenger seat of the car, he used GPS tracking on his PC, cellular internet access (with streaming Internet radio…often listening to the BBC), voice recognition software, and a digital tape recorder that transcribes directly into MS Word.

"Having read the post I wanted to ask Stephen for success rate of such transcription. After some six months I sent him a mail and got a prompt reply :

"Thank you for your email. Unfortunately, I found the success rate to be unacceptably low. After a number of experiments, I found it faster/easier to listen to the recording and then manually type what I wanted. To get a high rate of success with the electronic transcription, I would have to speak too slowly, announcing punctuation, for it to be practical. I wish I had better news for you."

Bad news, isn't it?

Anyway, one of the use of such compact recorder lies in recording speeches at my local club. A speech will be recorded as a file and speeches can, therafter, be distributed to other members, as an attachment who could not made it to a certain meeting or it can be archived. Of course, one can go through the speech at leizure to use it in your next bulletin.

Prashant