The Internet Archive has started to distribute books as DAISY (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAISY_Digital_Talking_Book), something we should definitely take a look at. We might also consider leveraging the GNOME accessibility framework to provide book-reading features for Epubs and PDFs in Read - it may be tricky, but the end results would be worth it. Thanks, Sayamindu
On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:34 AM, Samuel Klein <meta...@gmail.com> wrote: > Bumping up this recent thread on the bookreader list about text-to-speech. > Mike and Gregor, in case you haven't seen what's currently possible: > > I believe James S's Read Etexts uses speech-dispatcher to read selected > text. Aleksey and others may have done further work with espeak... I've > included some old threads from the Sugar list this past spring below. > > SJ > > > On Thu, Oct 29, Mike McCabe <mcc...@archive.org> wrote: > > I also think this is a great idea. I've worked with several > text-to-speech readers recently, as part of my effort to make the > Internet Archive books available to print disabled people. > > They're very useful, and I think that this mode of reading could be of > use to a very broad range of users. I suspect we'll see more of it soon. > > I'm also curious to hear about specific experiences with > linux-compatible free TTS, as we may be producing audio books with this > to work with the new Library of Congress audio players. > > Best regards - > Mike > > > > > == [1] old note from James Simmons == > ( in repsponse to this speech-synthesis summer of code proposal: > http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/speech-synthesis ) > > Chirag, > > Since you have been working with Aleksey Lim you probably know about > text to speech with highlighting in Read Etexts. I wrote the original > TTS code that used speech-dispatcher with some assistance from Hemant > Goyal and the folks on the speech-dispatcher project. Aleksey > refactored my code so it could work with either speech-dispatcher or his > own gstreamer espeak plugin. Not only does his plugin need no > configuration to work, it also does a LOT better in producing timely > callbacks as it reads each word. > > As you point out in your proposal, highlighting the word as it is spoken > is a big part of the benefit of what you're proposing. If all you > wanted to do was capture some highlighted text in the clipboard and have > it spoken in a voice you can configure in a control panel, that would be > easy, even trivial. It's the highlighting that's difficult. When I > added speech to Read Etexts I deliberately tried for the simplest > approach that would get the job done. It reads only the current page. > It always starts either at the first word on the page, or if speech has > been paused, it resumes with the last word spoken. You can't choose the > word to start on. The Activity itself receives the callbacks as each > word is spoken and takes care of doing the highlight and scrolling the > textarea so the highlighted word stays on the screen. > > If I had to write a facility that did what Read Etexts does outside of > the Activity I wouldn't know how to do it. It seems to me that > highlighting is best done by the Activity itself. I can't deny that it > would be useful to have all this work done as you have described without > the Activity knowing anything about it, but it doesn't seem feasible. > You'd have to have something that could work with gtk textareas, the > evince component Read uses, Abiword, and everything else that came along. > > Another thing you'd have to deal with is PDFs composed of scanned in > book pages. There are a lot of these around (the Internet Archive is > full of them) and somehow the kid trying to select words on a scanned in > page would have to be clued in that these words are not selectable. > > I suppose you could make an Activity that grabbed whatever text was in > the clipboard, displayed it in a textarea, and highlighted the words in > that textarea as it spoke them. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what you > had in mind. > > Splitting sentences into separate words will be a challenge. I just use > spaces as delimiters and filter out characters like asterisks, vertical > bars, etc. That works OK for English but not for other languages. If I > wanted Read Etexts to do highlighting on the Bhagavad-Gita in the original > Sanskrit it wouldn't work. Even in English I get tripped up by double > hyphens (--). It would be nice if Gutenberg etexts put spaces around double > hyphens but they don't. > > It looks like you've picked a challenging project, and I would love to be > proven wrong about everything I've mentioned here. Good luck with this, > > James Simmons > > > == 2: SynPhony and reading assistance == > > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Carol Farlow Lerche <c...@msbit.com> > wrote: >> >> I'd like to call your attention again to SynPhony. We are close to a base >> release (probably this week) of a 44,000 word English word database that has >> a very rich array of information helpful to the teaching of English, >> especially reading. A 10,000 word Spanish lexicon and 50000 word German one >> will follow. Norbert Rennert who compiled these, would like very much to >> work with other language experts to extend this effort to other languages. >> Some highlights of the English lexicon: screened from the CMU Sphynx corpus >> for accessibility to children, each word entry has frequency data from >> analysis with respect to a large corpus of text merged in, phoneme breakdown >> (used by reading curricula to decide the order in which words should be >> introduced or deemed decodable), etymology, semantic domain >> (categorization), IPA coding, syllabification and stress marking. >> >> The second release will merge in many images, though we don't expect to >> have a complete image-to-word mapping without a volunteer effort. We plan >> to create an API and a way to define a curriculum sequence for word groups >> once the basic database is released, to allow integration of the word bank >> across all the activities that are literacy related, as well as create >> more. We also hope to use the word bank to score texts for reading level >> and assist in creation of simplified version of extant texts suitable for >> use by emergent readers. Please read our design documents at the above >> site. >> >> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 2:02 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <to...@sugarlabs.org> wrote: >>> >>> Aleksey has started a very interesting new path: >>> >>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-February/011470.html >>> > > > > > >> Gregor Kervina wrote: >> > Hi Sayamindu, >> > thanks for quick reply! >> > There is a lot of text to speech software out there - I use >> > http://www.bytecool.com/coolspch.htm that you can try trial and download >> > additional voices, just to get a feeling, but it is not free and not for >> > linux. Many other programs are more complex and complicated and some of >> > them use very complex voice engines that in my opinion doesn't sound >> > very good. (I use Mary voice with cool speech) >> > >> > OK I spent some time to find all TTS software that is free for linux and >> > here are some links: >> > >> > http://linux-sound.org/speech.html >> > >> > http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/01/festival-text-to-speech-synthesis.html >> > http://larswiki.atrc.utoronto.ca/wiki/Software - see the links under >> > Speech section >> > http://www.xenocafe.com/tutorials/php/festival_text_to_speech/index.php >> > http://www.wikihow.com/Convert-Text-to-Speech-on-Linux >> > http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/ >> > http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival/onlinedemo.html - listen to >> > some demo voices >> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/dhvani/ - this one not english >> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/tts-cubed/ >> > http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/hephaestus.html - click the links in Speech >> > Synthesis section >> > http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/comp.speech/Section5/Synth/rsynth.html >> > http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/122197 - two readers - plug-ins for >> > firefox. >> > >> > I can not test them because I'm not a linux user. Maybe you can modify >> > some of these software (probably Festival) for more user friendly >> > reading and maybe program a specific button on XO keyboard that will >> > automatically read the selected text no matter what program is used for >> > opening the text. >> > >> > Judging from google search result for DTBooks, this technology is not >> > spread at all. The other problem is that it uses somtimes recorded audio >> > and the size of that is too large for XO... I think the most important >> > is that TTS works with reader that will open 1.6M e-books from internet >> > archive >> > >> > <http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/10/24/internet-archive-opens-1-6-million-e-books-to-olpc-laptops/>(are >> > you in this team?). >> > >> > Also one important thing is to add cheap headphones with laptop so >> > children could listen to reading without desturbing others and in the >> > noisy environments ... another advantage of audio reading is much longer >> > battery life because you can turn off LCD monitor and audio alone does >> > not consume much energy. >> > >> > Let me know what you think. >> > All the best, >> > Gregor >> > >> > >> > >> > On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 4:08 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayami...@gmail.com >> > <mailto:sayami...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> > >> > Hi Gregor, >> > Thanks a lot for jumping in :-) >> > >> > On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 2:38 AM, Gregor Kervina >> > <gregor.kerv...@gmail.com <mailto:gregor.kerv...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> > > Dear Sayamindu Dasgupta, SJ Klein and other members of this list, >> > > >> > > I'm a student of electrical engineering from Europe and would >> > like to share >> > > with you my very positive experience with text to speech >> > technology that can >> > > in my opinion significantly increase the educational potential of >> > XO if used >> > > in the right way. >> > > >> > > For the past 12 years (since I was 15 years old) I'm daily >> > learning from >> > > e-books and internet using text to speech software. I know this >> > software is >> > > unpopular in developed world, many people don't even know that it >> > exists. On >> > > the other hand many people (including me) don't like reading long >> > texts on >> > > the LCD screens - that's why e-books are also not very popular. >> > > >> > > But unlike my friends I read 50+ e-books every ear and also daily >> > news on >> > > the internet - I just select the text, copy it, and CoolSpeech >> > software >> > > (using Mary voice) reads me all the text with speeds 300 to 500 >> > words per >> > > minute. In this way I can browse other sites or look at photos or >> > just lay >> > > down and listen while my laptop is reading to me. >> > > Other people don't understand what I'm reading because it is too >> > fast for >> > > them but it can be learned quickly with slower speeds at >> > beginning. >> > > >> > > I think XO laptops should definitely have such software >> > pre-installed and a >> > > video introduction how to use it and what reading speeds can they >> > expect >> > > after some time of practicing. >> > > It is also ideal for children with poor eye sight. >> > > >> > >> > This sounds awesome. Could you let us know if the text to speech >> > software you have in mind is free/opensource and if it works on >> > Linux >> > ? >> > I am also looking at DTBooks specifications for digital talking >> > books >> > - do you know how useful/widespread this technology is ? >> > >> > Thanks, >> > Sayamindu >> > >> > >> > -- >> > Sayamindu Dasgupta >> > [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] >> > >> > >> > >> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Bookreader mailing list >> > bookrea...@lists.laptop.org >> > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/bookreader >> _______________________________________________ >> Bookreader mailing list >> bookrea...@lists.laptop.org >> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/bookreader > > > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep > -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) 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