Wow thanks Esther, I remeber I once heard of this, but I completely forgot about it, so thanks for sharing this with us.
I'll try it later today I hope and report my findings. TC James ----- Original Message ----- From: "Esther" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 9:54 PM Subject: Re: question for non-native english speakers Hi, In the case of the iPhone voices, they're only licensed for use on that platform. I'm not sure of the details, but if the arrangement were tied to a price based on every iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch 3GS sold, that could be quite attractive to the party licensing the voices. It's actually difficult to do a good job developing voices, as some of the recent posts regarding the Cereproc voices have shown. I actually like the accents (at least the Edinburgh Scottish accents as used for Cereproc's Heather voice -- no offense if there are any Glaswegians on the list), but I think it may be hard to develop voices that are both pleasing to the ear and robust in operation with VoiceOver. I was going to post about trying a new assistive technology software package called ClaroRead that I found when doing a Google search on the Cereproc voices, but I couldn't tell whether my initial VoiceOver crashes were due to the ClaroRead plus the Cereproc voices or due to the voices alone. I've since found that the voices themselves make VoiceOver behave unstably, and I believe that was also the initial behavior of the Cepstral voices for the Mac with VoiceOver under Tiger. I don't imagine that Apple has the resources to do the same extensive development that was put into "Alex" for voices in other languages -- especially the non-Latin based languages. The iPhone voices provide an opportunity to test performance under a subset of the full VoiceOver operating system, and with limitations of the number of simultaneous processes. I know we would like multi- process operation on this platform, but I imagine the present operating level allows Apple to check voice operation in a restricted setting. The iPod Touch has been fun to use for the language features. If I spoke Japanese, as Yuma does, I'd be very pleased, since I think that may be the only language where you can open links to web pages in the language and have both the English and the Japanese spoken by the iPhone/iPod Touch voice -- seems to be a side effect of the Japanese voices being developed for simultaneous English and Japanese use. I was curious about the language issue, too, so I recall trying to start up VoiceOver on a Mac in a store in France, just to hear what it sounded like. Well, if you know both English and French, you can deal with Alex mispronouncing the French words. Anne is doubtless familiar with all this, but at the time I only had VisioVoice running French on my Mac, still in Tiger. For those of you interested in the assistive package, there are some applications by a UK group called Claro Software. They develop assistive technology programs for both the Mac and PC platforms, and offer the Cereproc voices as one of the bundled voice options. You can download a 15-day trial version, if you go to the "More Info" button on the web page: http://www.clarosoftware.com/index.php?cPath=333 There are a number of interesting features that they document, so it would useful if other users would try this out. (Just don't use one of the Cereproc voices -- use Alex or Heather from the Infovox iVox voices). One of the things they feature is supposed to be a strong interface with Microsoft Word -- this is also listed in the description of ClaroRead SE from the Nextup page: http://www.nextup.com/claroreadmac.html There's a ClaroScan program that works with OmniPage Pro. I didn't get too far in trying this out because of the problems with VoiceOver crashing, but I think that was because of the Cereproc voice. I'm not really sure who this is aimed at, since a few of the buttons were not labeled. Also, the Nextup site spoke about using Macs with Parallels as an option. This is marketed as assistive technology, but it may be aimed at dyslexics or low vision users, or individuals with other learning disabilities. I think this has some intriguing features, and if I hadn't been discouraged by first having VoiceOver stop working, and then by having some completely independent difficulties with trying out the scanner -- unrelated to this program, along with a lack of time at present for other reasons, I would explore this more. The trial comes with 3 applications: ClaroRead, ClaroView, and ClaroCapture. The ClaroView part is definitely aimed at users with some vision, because it is used to adjust screen colors, tints, contrasts, etc. As I said, this is worth exploring, and probably especially for users with some Microsoft Word experience, and possibly low vision users. Here's the direct URL for the web page with the detailed description and link to trial version: http://www.clarosoftware.com/faq_info.php?cPath=333&tab=x Just don't use this with the Cereproc voices. Cheers, Esther James & Nash wrote: > > I am not sure, but I'd guess that they were licensed to work on a > mobile cellular platform. > > TC > > James > Donna Goodin wrote: > >> >> Ah, licensing issues, I should have thought of that. Still, if >> that's >> the case, how is it that they can be included on the iphone? >> >> Well, thanks for the info. I do hope this changes soon, it seems >> very >> unfair. >> Cheers, >> Donna >> On Nov 15, 2009, at 2:22 PM, James & Nash wrote: >> >>> >>> Hi Donna, >>> >>> I too find it surprising - especially as Apple is based in >>> California where I believe Spanish and some of the Chinese and >>> Japanese languages are spoken widely. I did point this out to Apple >>> and asked them if they would consider including the IPhone voices in >>> a future release, even though the InfoVox voices are fantastic. >>> However, Apple told me that because the voices were not Apple's, >>> that they could not be licensed to the Mac OS. >>> >>> HTH >>> >>> TC >>> James >>> >>> On 15 Nov 2009, at 19:06, Donna Goodin wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Hi Jonathan, >>>> >>>> thanks for responding. That's really too bad, and honestly, I'm a >>>> bit >>>> surprised. And i agree, it would seem like if the iphone could >>>> include localized languages and voices, so could the Mac. I hope >>>> that >>>> soon VO does include either other languages or a localized version, >>>> so >>>> that all of you can enjoy the same out-of-the-box access that we >>>> do. >>>> Cheers, >>>> Donna >>>> On Nov 15, 2009, at 1:49 PM, Jonathan Chacón wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> hello, >>>>> >>>>> I use MacOS in Spanish. I had to buy Spanish voice for voiceOver >>>>> from Infovox. >>>>> >>>>> I hoped Apple published Snow Leopard with the same voices in >>>>> iPhone. >>>>> >>>>> iPhone has voices for 21 languages. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Regards >>>>> Jonathan Chacón >>>>> >>>>> El 15/11/2009, a las 19:47, Donna Goodin escribió: >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi all, >>>>>> >>>>>> I have a question for those of you in countries where English is >>>>>> not >>>>>> spoken. When you all purchase a Mac, what language do you get >>>>>> for >>>>>> VO, >>>>>> i.e. do localized versions of VO come with voices other than >>>>>> English >>>>>> as the default? Do users there who don't speak English have to >>>>>> purchase voices in their native languages in order to use the >>>>>> Mac? >>>>>> Thanks, >>>>>> Donna >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>> >>> >>>> >>> >> >> >>> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
