Stenographers are used for court reporting, live closed caption creation for TV and can be a great paying job. Until now training and software was very expensive. The Open Steno Project has made training and software free and available to everyone.
Check out the project at openstenoproject.org
Stenography Software
Plover is a free open-source software for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It works with regular keyboards and with real stenography machines.
Upword.ly is a paid web-based real-time transcription delivery tool and a content management system for real-time stenographers.
Stenography Hardware
You can modify a regular computer keyboard to work as a stenography keyboard by following these instructions.
Or you can purchase affordable stenography keyboards here.
Other Stenography Resources
Check out openstenoproject.org for lots of other learning resources.