8 Alternatives to SpeakIt

CereProc has developed the world's most advanced text to speech technology. Our voices not only sound real, they have character, making them suitable for any application that requires speech output. This voice can synthesize: * Navigation directions from Scout while driving * Accessibility information with Talkback * Twitter, Facebook and newsfeeds with iHearNetwork * Your favourite eBook from eBook reader apps * Your SMS with apps like Handcent SMS or Drive Carefully * and many other TTS-enabled apps Please note that for some applications such as Scout, we recommend installing on a device with at least a 1GHz processor. You can try the Stuart voice for yourself, in the interactive demo on CereProc's homepage: http://www.cereproc.com Recent changes: DNN driven prosody prediction for high-quality voices Increased audio fidelity for Android integration, added voice settings Emotional voice improvements Voice audio gesture enhancements Text processing improvements including additional IPA feature support Lexicon improvements Core engine quality and stability improvements Hide full description

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Aira is a service that helps visually impaired individuals to live independently. In doing so, we — through the latest, personalized assistive technology and approaches — serve as visual interpreters and navigators for blind and low-vision people. Here is a detailed description of how the Aira platform works: Smart glass technology: The blind user puts on a Smart glass that has a camera, network connectivity and a rich set of sensors, such as Google Glass and taps on a button. An “Uber” style routing will connect the user to an available trained Agent to help the user with his or her request. Aira Agents are certified and trained: Agents are specially selected and trained through a 4-step process (described below). Agents are either from the user’s friends and family circle, or from our Aira Agent Team. The user will always interact with Agents whom they feel comfortable with and have trained/worked with in the past. Agent selection and training is a four-step process: — -Agents are selected by a pre-screening process that is similar to tests of a 911 operator. — -Every Agent is trained by experienced Aira team members on the use of the Agent Dashboard and go through various emergency protocols. — -The Agent is also introduced to “Aira Phraseology,” which will help him or her deliver timely, clear and concise information while taking into consideration the user’s surroundings. — -In addition, Agents go through a certification process after undergoing a thorough background check and signing confidentiality agreements. The Agent has a sophisticated Agent Dashboard which has the following data feeds: — -The current view from the user’s Google Glass User’s current location. — -Current traffic conditions, points of interest, government warnings, etc. — -Personal data gathered from the users — such as medical history, emergency contacts, things that they enjoy doing, places they like visiting, and names and contact information of family members and personal assistants. — -Facial recognition that will enable the user to identify individuals around him or her. Agent-User interaction: Agents are first paired with users to get acquainted with users’ needs by working with them on simpler tasks under supervision. This provides an opportunity for both the Agent and blind user to get to know each other and develop a compatible relationship. Once the user builds trust and becomes comfortable with the guidance received, the Agent will transition to guiding them independently with their tasks. User safety is paramount: — -Our platform, electronic equipment, system protocols, Agent training and user acclimatization are designed to put user safety as our top priority. All the transactions via Aira platform are secured confidential. — -The system has automatic algorithms to assess potential dangers. For example, the system is constantly monitoring for sound, video input, and sensor feed. As new safety systems and wearable devices become available, Aira’s platform is built to incorporate them and remain at the leading edge of safety. — -Aira has mechanisms to handle contingent situations, such as device or technical failure. Agents will be able to make calls on behalf of the user, request taxi service from reliable service providers to take the blind user home safely, or follow a specific user’s contingency plan. — -Even when network coverage is lost, Aira continues to store the user’s location locally on the wearable device. Once the network connection is regained, their location history is updated on the server, enabling the Agent to pinpoint the user’s current location. — -Aira’s platform is also capable of solving latency issues (slow network) for when there is limited network bandwidth, such as in crowded or remote areas. Environmental adaptation: In order to provide precise and accurate guidance in a noisy area, the majority of communications between the Aira Agent and the user can be done via pre-set tones and clicks. Latency adaptation (aka Slow 4G LTE Network): The Aira team has worked diligently to reduce time effects due to network delays. New algorithms being developed will optimize the quality of video streaming and reduce network delay to 1–2 seconds (depending on network reception in the area). Extensibility: — -Aira will be able to leverage indoor locations, based on systems such as iBeacon and Google Indoor Maps in the future when the technologies mature. — -Aira was built using its API platform, which will be open to external developers, allowing them to expand it to most of the industry’s wearable technologies. This means Aira, as a system, can incorporate information from other wearables, cameras, proximity sensors, infrared canes and other sensors to provide a complete solution for users. — -Aira has access to next generation Artificial Intelligence algorithms and advanced object and pattern recognition technologies. Market research and experiments: — -Aira has conducted experiments at FFB Dining in the Dark 2014, Vision Walk 2014, LA Tech talk, CSUN 2015 and Braille Institute. — -There have been 50+ blind user experiments, 200 blind user in-depth interviews, and 5 sessions for Agents and training. — -There are 100+ beta users signed up for trials in summer 2015. — -There are 8 formal focus groups with Mobility and Orientation specialists, assistive tech experts, and rehab advisors.

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A quick, easy, and scalable method of updating customer communications is provided by Plivo. A premium carrier network with connections in more than 190 countries, an API platform for messaging and voice calls, our visual builder PHLO, and solutions for sales and support teams are all included in Plivo's enterprise-grade communications platform. To meet the needs of today's organizations — quality, size, innovation, and agility — the Plivo team provides extensive experience in communications and cutting-edge software. Key advantages of utilizing Plivo • With any web standard language, organizations and developers may integrate voice and SMS conversations into any web or mobile application using Plivo's HTTP APIs. • With native SIP support, SDKs for web and mobile, and the option to purchase local numbers inside 55 countries, Voice API makes it easy to make phone calls to any country. • SMS API makes it possible to send SMS text messages to all nations and supports two-way SMS in 19 nations in addition to two-way SMS Short Code inside of US or Canadian territory. • Two-way SMS phone numbers are advantageous for marketing reasons when client involvement and interaction are necessary, enabling P2P texting while protecting number anonymity and fostering contact recognition with a dedicated, recognized number. •Plivo's dedicated Short Code feature makes it possible to broadcast text messages in big quantities and offers a customizable base transfer rate that initially starts at 40 messages per second. Overview Plivo is a cloud communication platform that gives applications integrated voice and SMS capabilities. The company's platform, which was created for corporate communications, aims to reduce the complexity of telephone for organizations through infrastructure as a service. In order to provide users with reliable services, Plivo has partnerships with more than 1600 local carrier networks in 195 different countries. IBM, Mercado Libre, Deckers Brands, Zomato, Ninja Van, Wolers Kluwer, Splunk, Nutanix, Arizona State University, LogMeIn, Zynga, Practo, Gojek, Accenture, Greyhound, and Wix.com are just a few of the companies that the business has served as clients. History Michael Ricordeau and Venky Balasubramanian founded Plivo in September 2012. As an open-source phone project, it had its start. While searching for a communications platform to integrate voice and SMS functionality into their respective applications, Venky and Michael met on Github. Plivo took part in the S12 batch of the American seed accelerator Y Combinator. Technology Plivo introduced its API platform for phone and SMS applications in July 2012. The business also released a new SDK that enables developers to link WebRTC apps to fixed SIP lines. Through WebRTC, users may use their browsers to make ordinary phone calls. With the help of Plivo's SDK, developers may also incorporate WebRTC into current call center and business calling systems. In the opposite direction, this also functions, enabling users to call WebRTC users using their standard SIP-based phones. In August 2018, Plivo announced the release of PHLO, a drag-and-drop workflow builder that would, according to the company, allow users to quickly create effective communication features. Text API The SMS API from Plivo provides a framework for programmatic text message sending and receiving. This comprises user appointment reminders, SMS marketing, SMS surveys, SMS autoresponders, and two-factor authentication. The SMS API provides users with short codes that may send high throughput and significant volumes of SMS messages, local phone numbers, alphanumeric sender ID, toll-free numbers, and other options. A MMS API Users can send and receive MMS messages, image files, emoticons, audio files, and video for a multimedia experience using Plivo's MMS API. Additionally, the MMS API provides multimedia storage for both inbound and outbound messages and resizes images to provide the optimal delivery across networks. Concurrent messaging requests are queued and retried by the MMS API in order to adhere to carrier policies and improve deliverability. Call API Users of the Voice API platform can make, receive, and manage calls programmatically as well as incorporate voice calling into apps. Conference calls, voice alarms, voice surveys, voicemail, scalable cloud IVR to route calls, and call forwarding are capabilities of the Voice API. Any device, including phones, SIP devices, mobile apps, and standard browsers, can be called and controlled using the Voice API. Trunking SIP SIP Trunking enables pay-as-you-go pricing, unlimited concurrent calls, and global access. VoIP infrastructure that may connect to or be integrated with a platform is provided by this. It offers a redundant infrastructure to boost and ensure uptime and terminates calls through local carriers to give users reduced post-dial delay. PoPs are placed in six areas across five continents to ensure low latency and great speech quality. Lookup by Number API With the help of Plivo's Number Lookup API, users may programmatically find out the nation, format, and number type for any phone number. The ability to recognize landline, mobile, and toll-free numbers and choose the channel to communicate with clients is one example. Another is providing users with the capacity to identify carrier networks for improved routing, decreased fraud, and customized customer experiences. Contacto Plivo's cloud contact center product, Contacto, manages client interactions in one location while utilizing Plivo's cloud communications infrastructure. The platform can be connected into technologies that businesses and organizations already use and it has chat, audio, messaging, and social interactions built into it. Users have the opportunity to provide contextualized and individualized support through the platform, and virtual agents are available round-the-clock. The platform is designed to give customer support representatives a unified perspective of the client, simple workflows, and coaching tools to improve how well they respond to more customer inquiries with less movement. Additionally, it provides managers and supervisors with real-time performance information and data-driven insights to enhance customer interactions and more effectively customize coaching and assistance for agents.

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is a computer screen reader for Microsoft Windows that enables blind and visually impaired people to read the screen using a refreshable Braille display or text-to-speech output. The Blind and Low Vision Group at Freedom Scientific creates JAWS. A study of screen reader users conducted between May and June 2021 by WebAIM, a provider of web accessibility services, revealed that JAWS was the most widely used screen reader globally, with 53.7% of respondents using it as their primary screen reader and 70.0% using it frequently .[1] Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 as well as every iteration of Windows Server since Windows Server 2008 are supported by JAWS. The software is available in two versions: the Home edition for private use and the Professional edition for usage in business settings. Standard, the previous name for the Home edition, was only compatible with personal Windows operating systems. Prior to JAWS 16, Standard was also available in a free DOS version. The user can utilize programs without the default Windows controls and programs that weren't created with accessibility in mind thanks to the JAWS Scripting Language. With JAWS, you can use keyboard shortcuts and verbal feedback to operate all of the main Windows operating system features. The majority of applications maintain these shortcuts as consistently as they can, however because to the extremely large number of functions required to efficiently operate current computer software, end users must memorize numerous unique keystrokes. The user has virtually complete control over virtually every aspect of JAWS, including all keystrokes and variables like reading speed, the level of granularity needed to read punctuation, and tips. Additionally, JAWS has a scripting language that may be used to automate procedures and change the behavior of the application in more intricate ways .[7] When a browser is active in the forefront, the software activates a special mode made just for web browsers. When navigating a website, JAWS initially announces the page's title and the number of links. The control key can be used to pause speech, the up/down arrow keys are used to traverse through lines, and the tab key is used to switch between links and controls. The next or previous element of a certain type, such as text boxes or check boxes, can be reached by pressing a specific letter on the keyboard[8]. JAWS can similarly access headings in Word and PDF documents .[9] It has been noted that the JAWS feature set and configurability are "complicated," and it is advised that users, such as site designers undertaking accessibility testing, receive training to prevent drawing incorrect conclusions from such testing.

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PowerTalk is a free program that automatically speaks any presentation or slide show running in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows. You just download and install PowerTalk and while you open and run the presentation as usual it speaks the text on your slides. The advantage over other generic 'Text To Speech' programs is that PowerTalk is able to speak text as it appears and can also speak hidden text attached to images. Speech is provided by the synthesised computer voices that are provided with Windows 7, Vista and XP, and other voices are available. PowerTalk uses PowerPoint supplied with Microsoft Office to show the presentation. Features. Aids you if you have difficulty speaking or you have an audience that contains people with sight problems (visual impairments, low vision or blind) or who have dyslexia; Helps you access presentations when there is no speaker and you are partially sighted; Creates engaging school activities such as reading stories created by students; Simple to use as you just select a presentation and it runs in PowerPoint as usual; Speaks the text on any presentation and uses standard Windows speech; Waits for text to appear and animation effects to play before speaking; Will speak hidden 'alternative text' for pictures, graphics shapes and text; Lets you add instant narration to presentations without the need to record speech; Is a useful tool for testing presentation accessibility when using a screen reader; Is mature with 1000s of downloads and several reviews from people who have found it useful; Free (gratis - as in 'free beer'). No purchase, registration or adverts, you just download and run it; Free (libre - as in 'free speech'). The Open Source Licence guarantees you the freedom to make copies and to alter its behaviour; Is listed on DMOZ and on Google web directories; Anyone can contribute to the project and developers will find it is a SourceForge project; Is an example of Open Source Assistive Technology Software, or OATS. Find out more on the Fullmeasure.co.uk home page. Is a featured project in the OATSoft Open Source Assistive Technology Software project which brings the benefits of Open Source software to Assistive Technology users; Using PowerTalk. Opening Presentations. NB! - some people are experiencing errors when opening a presentation from the PowerTalk file dialog. Please right click in explorer and select 'Narrate with PowerTalk'. There are a number of ways to get PowerTalk to narrate a PowerPoint Presentation (.ppt / .pptx file) or Slide Show (.pps / .ppsx file): Note: ppt and pps files are identical except for the ppt/pps part of the filename, the difference being what happens when they are opened. A .ppt file may be be saved in PowerPoint as a .pps file or else a .ppt file can be simply renamed as a .pps. Open a Slide Show. See below for details. Right click on a Presentation or Slide Show and select 'Narrate with PowerTalk'. Drag a Slide Show file onto a PowerPoint program shortcut. Browse to a Presentation or Slide Show using the dialog that appears when launching PowerTalk from the Start menu. The initial folder used may be specified using the shortcut 'Start in' property or adding the folder name as a parameter. Create a specific shortcut. Specify PowerTalk.exe as the target and the presentation file as a parameter(e.g. "C:Program FilesPowerTalkPowerTalk.exe" "MyShow.ppt"). By default PowerTalk will narrate Slide Shows when they are opened outside of PowerPoint (e.g. by double-clicking or right click and 'narrate' in Windows Explorer). Slide Show files may still be shown without narration by opening within PowerPoint or right-clicking on them and selecting 'show'. During installation there is an option to disable this feature and another option to enable it for Presentations. This behaviour may be changed at a later time by using the PowerTalk settings option in the startmenu (or as follows: open Windows Explorer (Windows key + E), select 'Tools' -> 'Folder Options' -> 'File Types', type 'PPS', select 'Advanced', select 'show' from the list (or 'open' for .ppt files) and then select 'Set Default'). Controlling Speech. Text can be entered on a slide in either a single text box or split into multiple boxes and these are handled slighty differently. The text in any single box is spoken continuously from top to bottom. Individual boxs are spoken in the order they are added to the slide. There appears to be no way to alter this and the way to force a different order is to create a new slide and copy the text boxes in the required order (hint: click on the box border and copy). Animated text is spoken in the order that the animations play, waiting for each to complete before speaking the next. However if a number of animations are used within a single text box, PowerTalk waits for the first animation only and then speaks all the remaining text. You may want to break the text into separate boxes and animate each. It is possible to specify the text spoken for images (and indeed any object including text) by entering Alternative Web Text for the image. This is done as follows: right click on the image, select 'format object' ('size and shape' in Office 2007), select the Web tab and enter the alternative text to be spoken (there may already be some alt text when images are cut and paste from web pages). If you enter a space then nothing is spoken at all. It is also possible to have text spoken that is not visible on the slide, for example to provide narration in addition to the slide content. One way is to add some text to a slide that is one or more spaces, which is then not visible, and set the Alternative Web Text to be the text to be spoken. If you have slide notes that you would like read then these can be copied to the Alternative text. Other ways to make text invisible are to drag it off the slide or set the text colour to be same as the background (and make it behind other text) and then you do not need to set the Alternative text. It can be hard to reselect invisible text later in order to change it unless you pick a consistent placement (e.g top left of slide). One way is to drag a selection rectangle over the area where it is known to be. Speech Options. The voice used and the speed of narration can be changed with the settings in the 'Speech Settings' section of Control Panel (on the 'Text To Speech' tab). There is a PowerTalk startmenu item that opens these settings. Windows XP comes with as single voice 'Sam'. The 'SAPI TTS components' download available in the Downloads section will add 'Mike' and 'Mary'. A range of additional SAPI 5.1 voices are available and examples include AT&T Natural Voices, Nuance RealSpeak, Neospeech and IBM ViaVoice The first time that PowerTalk is run you may notice a small delay as it analyses your PowerPoint and Speech API installations.

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Utilizing RoboBlather is actually very easy. Simply start the application and start typing the words you want to have said to you. The user interface is really unappealing, and the yellow font doesn't help matters much. Well, at least not for me, reading is difficult. The developer should have used white text instead of black. Alright, you must select the "Speak" option after typing or copying your text. Microsoft David should be the default voice on Windows 10, while Microsoft Zira can be selected instead. Simply select the "Stop" option to end a speech that is already in progress. Depending on the operating system you have installed on your computer, a different list of voices will be made available. The ability to accelerate speech is something we appreciate. This can be modified from the default setting of Medium to Fast, Extra Fast, Slow, or Extra Slow. Since the default speed sounds nicer and is simpler to understand, we advise sticking with it. The synthetic nature of the vocals is something we do not enjoy. Although we'd prefer a more human-like touch, the developer probably had little control over such things. It would have worked much better if Microsoft had given developers access to the Cortana API so they could use her voice. There isn't much to be done outside of what is visible at the bottom when it comes to saving, as we can see. There is no option to save files in a format other than.WAV, which can be problematic for some users. Since the file can be transformed using different software, it is not for us. Overall, RoboBlather is a fantastic choice for folks who require text to speech software. We don't think the design is particularly strong, and we don't think the creators will change it in the end.

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Regardless of their skill level, the typical user can use Speakonia very easily. In a technological sense, the graphical user interface is comparable to Notepad. The text-to-speech voice of their choice will read anything the user types into the box that resembles a play button once they click it. The user can switch the voice at any moment by selecting a different voice from the drop-down box under the Speech Properties that is titled Voice. With the sliders beneath the drop-down menu, the user can additionally alter the voice's volume and pace. Several languages can be put alongside it. Interface The menu bar, toolbar, text box, and "Speech Properties" Box are the four basic components of the Speakonia user interface. The Menu Bar is mostly used for storing and exporting files, as well as for software registration. It is not the program's primary focus. Shortcuts for saving features are available on the toolbar, along with buttons for starting, pausing, and stopping the voice reading of text that has been entered into the text box. You will spend the majority of your time in the software in the Text Box. To make the voice say something, just write it into the text box. Last but not least, Speakonia's most useful feature is the Speech Properties window. You may swiftly switch between voices, alter the voice's pitch and volume, as well as its speaking speed. The useful "Lexicon" feature in this window also enables you to amend a word's pronunciation if the voice pronounces it incorrectly. Speakonia's Speech Properties window. Voices of Microsoft Speakonia comes with at least 11 voices by default. Installing a second bundle of voices titled simply: Microsoft voices Mary, Sam, and Mike will significantly raise this number. The Microsoft voices as well as a variety of other voices will be available for you to use after the download is finished (RoboSoft 1-6, whispers, etc.). creating a.WAV export The spoken text can be exported from Speakonia as.WAV audio files. You need to register with Speakonia in order to export a file as a.WAV audio file. One only needs to provide their name and email address to register. Once enrolled, you will then have access to all of Speakonia's services after receiving a code through email. Anyone who wants to use the voices in their YouTube videos must register. Trivia The Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice voices were really modified to create Speakonia's default adult voices. They too have had new names. There are no markers for pitch, speed, or volume to show levels of each. A Registry Editor is the sole method. The Microsoft Voices that come with Windows XP have different voice patterns from those in Speakonia. Instead, it resembles Microsoft Sam for Windows 2000. Although Speakonia is no longer supported, CFS-Technologies still offers the program for download on its website. (Also accessible via CNET's download page) Windows RT is not compatible with Speakonia. Every TTS Voice's test voice starts with the words "This is a test for Speakonia." The following registration key is required in order to utilize Speakonia to its fullest extent: Name: Unrestricted Permit Email: [email protected]. Reg. Identifier: SPK-174101-172083 References The Mediafire links might not function. Use the Google Drive links if it doesn't work. http://www.cfs-technologies.com/home/ is the download link. id=1.4 Pieboy6000 has supplied links to Mediafire. Speakonia: Where can I find MediaFire? 21142f5uq5u4ket Sam, Mike, Mary, and RoboSoft voices from Microsoft: http://www.mediafire.com? e4hkxgt5jbsxu72 The Speakonia website no longer offers the ability to download the additional voices, such as British voices. But you can download them from here thanks to Ducky. There are additional links for the voices (including more voices than were previously provided) here or here.

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Software called text-to-speech (TTS) converts digital text into voice by reading it aloud. For those who want to record audio but do not want to use their own voice, it is fantastic. Currently, neural-network AI voices are so good that they can compete with native speakers of the target language or even those who have a heavy accent. People who need to record a voice-over but lack professional audio equipment or a sound-proof setting can benefit from text-to-speech technology. People with visual impairments and reading difficulties also frequently utilize text-to-speech as an assistive device. Text-to-speech technology "may give huge, frequently life-changing, advantages for people with dyslexia and other learning difficulties," according to the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD). Text is turned into speech using technology called text-to-speech (TTS). Using speakers, a TTS engine plays back the audio that has been converted from text to sound. TTS was initially created to assist computers in reading back documents. Today's TTS engines can recognize words, phrases, and sentences in addition to producing natural Text-To-Speech voices. Text-to-speech technology essentially translates written words into spoken words. It can be applied to scripts created for narrating a film, creating an audiobook out of a book, or using it in conjunction with OCR to create an assistive technology for the blind (OCR). OCR is a method for computers to read and translate text from photographs.) The idea behind text-to-speech (TTS) is straightforward: since voice is the primary form of human communication, making computers speak is possible. Like having your own private narrator, actually! Anyone wishing to record audio voice narration can save a ton of time by using text-to-speech. It will probably take you several tries to flawlessly record any slightly lengthier voice-over, unless you are an experienced voice artist. The sound quality of a lengthy piece of audio may change with time, making it seem inconsistent, unless you have a sound-proof environment and competent audio recording equipment. You can easily create a great voice using computer-generated audio, and the results will always be consistent and background noise-free. Text to speech tools offer enormous potential for application in education, the workplace, and daily life and can be a great assistive technology for those with learning disabilities: TTS for the visually impaired or blind for dyslexia TTS TTS for youth TTS for instructional video TTS for online learning TTS for instructional/demo videos You may talk and produce an audio file from text using SpeechLab, a straightforward Text To Speech (TTS) and Speech To Text (STT) program. Simply enter the text you want to convert to speech, and SpeechLab will do the rest using the Text To Speech (TTS) engine of your choice.

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