Jay's blog on text-to-speech (Now Defunct)

What's up with text-to-speech (TTS) and Microsoft? Heck, what's up with TTS in general these days? Speech, language, and technology. Cool stuff, indeed.

Listen to emails and word documents in MP3 format on Pocket PC

Just when you thought you might be able to use your car commute time to sit back and relax, listen to NPR, and creep slowly across the Seattle bridge... TTS is there to readout that document that you didn't have time to read the night before.

Magnetictime has a product that I have not tested, but I thought I'd mention it here as TTS is core to its functionality. It also uses Acapella engines. "MT1" is the name of the program and apparently it will readout your outlook mail as well as word docs on your pocket PC device. By creating a new folder in Outlook, text is converted into waves and then the program can transfer the waves directly to your device. Currently works for English, but soon to work with more languages.

Seems like a cool app if you have a device that's not a smart phone. It doesn't appear that you'd get up to the minute info... you have to download to the device before you hit the road. And at least you aren't using precious airtime minutes to use it either.

Published Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:44 PM by jaywaltm

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About jaywaltm

Jay is a Program Manager in the Speech and Natural Language Group at Microsoft. He has a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Washington.

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