2009/2/24 Adrian Higginbotham <[log in to unmask]>:
> Maybe I’m the only person who doesn’t know about this but I’m blown away by
> CALL Scotlands provision of a free Scottish synthetic voice (Heather) to
> anyone in Scottish Education (it costs £30 if you aren’t).
As occasionally discussed on www.oastoft.org there is a real need for
good quality yet free voices, especially SAPI. I tried to find one a
while back for PowerTalk but had little luck. While VI users generally
like more synthetic sounding voices as they can be used at speed,
others want more natural voices. Interestingly it appears that older
people (like those with dementia) prefer relatives voices so
recordings work best.
The 3 Microsoft voices Mike, Sam and Mary are obviously just throw
away "samples". Projects like Festival offer the technology but
someone needs to create the voices. Does anyone have ideas for
funding?
CALL is only free for Scottish compulsory ed unfortunately.
Steve Lee
OSS Watch
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