New voices for the BookSense? You young people don't know how good you have things today. Back in my day we had to use a Tri-formations FFST terminal. You want to talk about mispronunciations? If we wanted to understand things we either had to misspell them or learn what it thought things should sound like. Good thing that they were old Heath kit built it yourself devices. It kept our fingers warm, which was a bonus since we didn't have heat.
Did synthesizers get better? Ah the ever popular Braille n' Speak. Blazie Engineering must have spent at least $35.00 for that voice chip. At least we could carry it with us. Although it was up hill no matter where we walked. And it was always into the wind. The snow drifts would pile up so high we had to step over the transmission lines that carried electricity. At least we didn't have to worry about walking into those telephone poles as we climbed over the drifts. Now what ever happened to the Type and Speak that came with the Verbal Operating System? Now there was a synthesizer. No problem turning up the rate. None of this speeding up speech, because instead of trying to keep the same tone while speaking faster, it worked like the old variable speed tape players that made every recording sound like Disney characters. A lot less overhead that way. Did I mention that we had to use these systems on stationary wind trainers? That was the only way to generate power. OK, obviously this note is written tongue in cheek. The challenges with synthesizers is getting used to them in the first place. Then with different devices, I don't think one tool is the answer for all of us, we need to get familiar with different types of text to speech software solutions. I like the fact that companies are working on better and better human sounding voices. What I have noticed is that I struggle using those better voices at faster rates. I suspect my brain is bocking at them, because people rarely speak that quickly. What is the average rate of a person's speech? I think it is in the neighbourhood of 90 words per minute. So my head is saying that it is OK to have those robotic voices cranked to 200 or 300 words per minute, because they are not human and that is OK. Winding up a newer human sounding voice to those rates probably has my brain saying hang on there speed racer; people do not talk that fast. Well may be an auctioneer. As for me I am fortunate in that I have had to use different qualities of synthetic speech. Therefore the transition between synthesizers is not too bad. Good luck along the path of becoming comfortable with more and more synthesizer options. Hang in there, it does get better. Vic Pereira Chief Informatics Office | Bureau de l'informatique Small Business and Marketplace Services | Services axés sur le marché et les petites entreprises Industry Canada | Industrie Canada 400 St Mary Avenue, Winnipeg MB R3C 4K5 | 400, avenue St Mary, Winnipeg MB R3C 4K5 [email protected] Telephone | Téléphone 204-983-0653 Facsimile | Télécopieur 204-984-4205 Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list andyour message is related to GW Micro or the BookSense, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. To manage your subscription to gw-booksense, visit: http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv
