I still remember my first encounter voice recognition software. I was at a friend's house sometime during 1997 and he had just gotten a new software package. It came with a headset that had a microphone. It looked cool, not that it was my first time seeing a headset with a microphone, but this was different, it was at someone's house rather than on TV. Then he showed me how he could open up different applications and perform easy tasks like saving a file and such just by speaking to the microphone. The software only recognized some words and it also had to be very clearly spoken. In addition, it also required a sample of your voice before it would function properly. Nonetheless, it was cool.



Link: Phoronix