Book People Archive

RE: Clarification-etext voice reader on the Pocket PC

Joe,

Here is the url from the Fonix website that carries the report, including
that Fonix is preparing a text to speech application that will run under the
Pocket PC 2002 operating system. I don't why this requires an internet
connection. The application should reside on the Pocket PC and read out loud
any txt file stored in the device. I have the current desktop version of the
Fonix product and the program itself is quite small and runs under Windows.
The accompanying dictionary is pretty large, but that is a bridge they will
have to cross. The dictionary has to be on the player device for the reader
to read in real time.

http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D1884%2526a%253D15732,00.asp

To my mind what is important here is twofold: first that speech capability
is to be added to PDAs, but just as important that a decent robo voice is to
be ported there. There are 10 or 20 unbearable text to speech engines on the
market or as free shareware. This includes Microsoft's own speech engine,
which is terrible. But at the moment, apart from the apparently discontinued
DEC Talk, Fonix has the only high quality speech engine in a consumer
product. In its latest incarnation, as iSpeak 2.0, it is very easy to listen
to. I am listening now to a recording of Kipling's Kim from the Gutenberg
and enjoying it greatly. For my purposes, a minidisk recorder takes care of
the whole issue (or, iSpeak can also make MP3 files and I could burn an MP3
CD--I have an MP3 portable CD player). But there is something to be said for
carrying around only one portable device, and since the Fonix product reads
ordinary txt files, you could put 5 or 6 full length books in a Compaq
Portable PC and have them with you all the time. If AT&T could ever be
shaken loose from their business telephony orientation for their voice
product, they have the best voice I have heard. They at least have moved in
the last year from demos of a product that is not for sale at all to putting
a software developers kit on the market. Perhaps a consumer product will
follow eventually.

Leslie