ViaVoice Is Back

[Janina Sajka]

It is my understanding that IBM intends that ViaVoice will e avaqilable
to, and usable by our community in applications like Speakup and
Emacspeak. I also believe that this technology is already, or will soon
be available at this Wizard site mentioned. Clearly, this news story has
a different point--but that's because they write for a different
audience.

Sina Bahram writes:
> From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram at nc.rr.com>
> 
> Janina any ideas on this? Do you think the components that are used for that
> commercial package can then start to be used for Emacspeak or anything like
> that again?
> 
> Take care,
> Sina
> 
> No trees were destroyed in sending this message; however, a large number of
> electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of Janina Sajka
> Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2004 11:45 AM
> To: speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> Subject: ViaVoice Is Back
> 
> 
> >From GCN's printer friendly version of the news story at:
> http://www.gcn.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=gcndaily2&stor
> y.id=24949
> 
> IBM brings text-to-speech to the Linux desktop
> 
>    02/16/04
>    By Patricia Daukantas,
>    GCN Staff
>    IBM Corp. researchers are bringing text-to-speech capabilities to the
> Linux desktop.
>    Previously, production versions of IBM's text-to-speech engine had been
> available only for the Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, said
>    Rich Schwerdtfeger, an IBM software group accessibility strategist and
> chairman of IBM's Accessibility Architecture Review Board.
>    A few years ago, the company had made a beta Linux version of the speech
> engine available for downloading, but took it offline when it stopped
> working
>    with later versions of the Linux kernel.
>    The speech engine, together with a screen reader, converts text on a
> computer screen to sound but does not enable users to issue voice commands
> to the
>    computer, Schwerdtfeger said.
>    Wizzard Software Corp. of Pittsburgh is distributing the IBM-developed
> ViaVoice speech engine in its Interactive Voice Assistant line of products,
>    Schwerdtfeger said.
>    List pricing for the IVA Business Starter Kit, which assists users with
> e-mail, dictation and Internet applications, is $95 per seat. The IVA Global
>    Business Suite, with additional translation and presentation
> capabilities, and the IVA Communications Pack, with support for phone-to-PC
> applications,
>    each cost $120 per seat.
> 
> -- 
> 	
> Janina Sajka
> Email: janina at rednote.net		
> Phone: +1 (202) 408-8175
> 
> Director, Technology Research and Development
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> http://www.afb.org
> 
> Chair, Accessibility Work Group
> Free Standards Group
> http://a11y.org
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
	
Janina Sajka
Email: janina at rednote.net		
Phone: +1 (202) 408-8175

Director, Technology Research and Development
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
http://www.afb.org

Chair, Accessibility Work Group
Free Standards Group
http://a11y.org