Interesting. It says Hawking would rather stick to his old system than switch to a new one, which conflicts with reports I read like a year ago that suggested he was interested in a direct brain interface.

But perhaps it's not so surprising. He's old, and past a certain age you just don't have time to relearn everything. Your time is better spent squeezing the juice out of what you have.

>> "It says Hawking would rather stick to his old system than switch to a new one"

Huh? The quote you're replying to says he "has been using his new software for several months". Am I missing something? Is he switching back after testing? I know that he doesn't ever plan on changing the 'voice' as it has become known as his own voice but I don't see why he would test new software and then not use it. To test it you will have to learn it.

Three years ago, he was looking for an assistant. http://www.theverge.com/2011/12/29/2668408/stephen-hawking-t... states that, at the time, his computer was running Windows XP, so he definitely wasn't on the bleeding edge. However, that has changed a bit; he upgraded to Windows 7 (http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html)

His system still uses the cheek trigger and still works more or less the same way, but improvements have been made to its word prediction and other details of its operation.

Great! Thanks for finding that.