Still better Windows text-to-speech
Balabolka adds new features to free text-to-speech for Windows. You can import all kinds of files, set the voice characteristics you want, change the speed and emphasis, etc., then export the results as audio files, say for an mp3 player. Note that this is not a screen reader — it’s a utility for producing better-than-average synthetic speech for almost any text you have.
Balabolka Enhances Windows Text-to-Speech with Reading Styles and Audio Export
Cloudy captions
Online captions make videos accessible to people with hearing or language disabilities, and make content indexing and searching possible for everyone. There are more than a few online captioning tools. But SpeakerText is a bit different. It uses speech recognition and human transcribers to provide text at $2 a minute plus your volume-based monthly fee, with a turnaround of 48 hours. It stores the synchronized transcript in the cloud, and loads a player when people visit the video on your site, with additional features like search and quote. A good price for an innovative service that may help captions go even more mainstream.
SpeakerText Builds the Missing Text Layer for Online Video [Invites]
Guten ’nuff
Project Gutenberg is a long-standing project that transfers out-of-copyright books into electronic text formats–usually classic fiction, but there are some oddball gems scattered in as well. Now comes word that some fraction of these titles will be available through the iBooks store for iPad users from the get-go, presumably compatible with the built-in VoiceOver screen reader. So for the first time, people who are blind or have learning disabilities will be able to access The Story of Crisco at the same time as everyone else.
Wired: iBooks Store Loaded with Project Gutenberg Titles at Launch
Cool for school
Some prestigious universities are starting to accept short videos as part of their admissions applications. This has great implications, particularly for kids with learning disabilities who may need non-written means to show their genuine worthiness.
No iPad jokes from us, no sir
We were going to wait until some of the hype died down before considering the accessibility side of the iPad–but fortunately our friend Ricky Buchanan has already started the process. Looks promising!
Blio us away
The latest developer to enter the e-book fray is Ray Kurzweil, who this week will be revealing Blio. Instead of taking a hardware approach, though, Blio is platform-independent, free software that will present books in a consistent format–rather like PDF–that also supports use of color and video. People with learning disabilities will be particularly happy to hear that this format supports use of text-to-speech synchronized with text highlighting, and that markup such as bookmarks will be imported when the file is shared among devices. Not clear what the implications will be for blind individuals; we’ll probably learn more when Blio is formally announced at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.
Wired: Singularity Proponent Ray Kurzweil Reinvents the Book, Again
Eee-reader–only for ghost stories?
Asus is making its own jump into the e-reader market with its Eee-reader, due out in two models by the end of the year. We like that the higher-end model opens like a book and has its own stand, making it more manageable for folks who might have difficulty holding, say, a Kindle while reading or selecting options. Any other thoughts on how this design could be an accessibility boon?