>From GCN's printer friendly version of the news story at: http://www.gcn.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=gcndaily2&story.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
