How I use it: Voice recognition software.

Speech recognition software appeared in about 1952 but the first widely available example was the system developed by IBM and incorporated, in 1996, into its personal computer operating system OS/2 Warp. The following year, Dragon Systems released its first version of NaturallySpeaking for Microsoft Windows. At about the same time, IBM released a Windows version of its recognition software, ViaVoice. Competition in the commercial field disappeared in 2003 when ScanSoft, now Nuance, obtained the rights to produce and develop both systems. Since then several versions of NaturallySpeaking have been released, the most recent being version 11.5 in June 2011 and running on a range of Windows systems from Windows XP to Windows 7. There are programs available for Mac computers, with the market leader being a version of Dragon.