The J-Say product has undergone a significant face lift. It is now owned by Hartgen Consultency, a company founded and headed by the developer Brian Hartgen. J-Say is middleware technology that interfaces Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional with the Jaws for Windows screen reader. It allows users to control Jaws for Windows using their voice, and allows them to get full control of their computer. J-Say version 13 has just been released. There are five features I really like about this upgrade.

1. The “forget it” command which deletes whatever was dictated in the last utterance and speaks what has been left. This allows me, as a user to retain the context of my dictation.
2. The new correction feature using the “select” command. If the corrected phrase is in the choices, it improves the speed of editing significantly. No need to redictate or to open the spell box and re-enter the text.
3. This is probably the fastest version of J-Say so far. I can feel this specially in Microsoft Outlook when I have to get through a large number of messages quickly. I prefer using the keyboard for this but now, speech recognition has become an acceptable option.
4. J-Say tags allow the user, to mark files across folders and drives and then to delete, move or copy them. This beats holding down the shift key and moving around with arrow keys or, holding down the control key and marking files using the arrow keys.
5. You can stay current with Jaws for Windows versions. J-Say no longer restricts you to a specific build of jaws.

Finally, for those of you contemplating buying this technology, the price has been reduced significantly. Please see the J-Say website for more information.