Text To Speech - is there a good solution for dyslexics? - General Questions and Answers

Hi, I am a Dyslexic android user, and I work in disability services for a small university. I am wondering if there is a practical TTS solution which would be simpler than the common "copy/paste" apps.
iOS has VoiceOver, which (for Dyslexics) puts Android TTS support to shame.
My dream is to be able to point to a chunk of text and have it read aloud without switching apps. Is there any workaround or plugin I could use to make this possible?
I have a Verizon HTC Droid DNA. I would be willing to root this if there is a possibility of this working.

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Speech Recognition API for Windows Mobile 6.1?

I've started developing an application that allows the user to compose and send an email completely hands-free... by voice command only.
However I'm having trouble finding a decent, open source (free) speech recognition (speech-to-text) engine / API to use.
Does anyone know of one? I tried PocketSphinx but had trouble compiling it in Windows using VS2008.
I'm wondering what API the Windows Live Search app uses? Its speech recognition capabilities are already decent, and if it's included with Windows Mobile or .NET Compact Framework 3.5 or Windows Mobile 6.1 itself, then I would prefer to use that. But I'm having trouble determining if this speech recognition is available to 3rd-party developers and, if so, how to interface with it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
OMG I hate timeouts lol
So I had this nice long post about how I thought it might be one of three things and I whipped out my omnia and disconnected the network and blah blah.
When I hit post, I got a not logged in timeout.
So here's the short of it:
It uses a server, that's probably related to UC aka Office Communications Server aka Speech Server 2007... you can get to it (and all the Microsoft Speech technologies, including Voice Command) here:
http://www.microsoft.com/speech/speech2007/default.mspx
A little more searching lead me to read the MSDN Channel 9 blog on said subject:
http://blogs.msdn.com/speech/archiv...h-for-mobile-now-with-speech-recognition.aspx
which states:
"The speech recognition functionality for the application doesn't actually sit on the Windows Mobile phone. Instead, the phone takes your speech input, sends it to a server, the server does it's recognition magic, and sends the results back to the phone. "
Speech Server 2007
Thanks for the reply MerlinJim... sucks about the timeout! That's why on a long post I always copy the text to the clipboard... that way if it times out I can just paste it in! (It's happened to me too many times for me to not do that now!)
Yeah I've looked at Speech Server 2007 as well... and I was thinking that maybe Live Search offloaded the speech recognition to a server. There's a little lag between what you say and when it guesses what you said.
I guess something like that would work. If you're writing an email then you need an Internet connection, and so sending the voice data to a speech server would be plausible. The only downside would be if it used up a lot of data transfer/bandwidth, and the user was on metered bandwidth.
The lag would be a bit of a drawback, because if the Speech Server guessed incorrectly what you said, but you kept talking (due to the processing lag), then you would have to go back and correct what you had said.
And also sometimes the Live Maps speech recognition is WAY off. Like I'll say "1 Jefferson Parkway" and it will come back with something like "Did you say 'Parkstone Apartments?'"
It's also speaker-independent, so you don't do any training. I would rather train an app to recognize my voice specifically, because I would be the only user of it.
But it may be my only solution for right now. Thanks for the info! I was beginning to think that no one knew the answer.
acrosser said:
Thanks for the reply MerlinJim... sucks about the timeout! That's why on a long post I always copy the text to the clipboard... that way if it times out I can just paste it in! (It's happened to me too many times for me to not do that now!)
Yeah I've looked at Speech Server 2007 as well... and I was thinking that maybe Live Search offloaded the speech recognition to a server. There's a little lag between what you say and when it guesses what you said.
I guess something like that would work. If you're writing an email then you need an Internet connection, and so sending the voice data to a speech server would be plausible. The only downside would be if it used up a lot of data transfer/bandwidth, and the user was on metered bandwidth.
The lag would be a bit of a drawback, because if the Speech Server guessed incorrectly what you said, but you kept talking (due to the processing lag), then you would have to go back and correct what you had said.
And also sometimes the Live Maps speech recognition is WAY off. Like I'll say "1 Jefferson Parkway" and it will come back with something like "Did you say 'Parkstone Apartments?'"
It's also speaker-independent, so you don't do any training. I would rather train an app to recognize my voice specifically, because I would be the only user of it.
But it may be my only solution for right now. Thanks for the info! I was beginning to think that no one knew the answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
perhaps, but there IS a speech application loaded ON a Windows Mobile 6.1 which has text-to-speech capabilities and speech recognition
(my Blackjack II loaded with Wm6.1 has this capability)
can't find any API to use it though... only way to activate this TTS capability is to
1) sms announcing
2) appointment announcing
3) call announcing
no actual program to do TTS...
Any progress on this or any other speech-to-text program? I'm really interested in finding one.
Wouldn't mind being a beta tester, either.
*Double Post*
DELETE

Mobile-web-based text-messaging client/reader

I have a rather interesting idea, and I thought to post it here. I apologize if there is a more appropriate location for this thread, but, as I am new to XDA-Dev, I hope this will be forgiven, and someone could perhaps correct my mistake and move it or tell me what the proper thread location would be.
Also, as a recently-graduated high school student, I have plenty of free time before I start college, wherein I plan on learning a few programming languages, starting with Java, so I can develop for Android and iOS. This means that here at XDA-Dev, I'll hopefully soon become a very active user.
Now that the formalities are out of the way, I'll move on to my idea.
My phone is a Samsung Replenish(SPH-M580), which is a 600Mhz ARMv6, with 512M of RAM, EV-DO Sprint data network that saves me $10 monthly(Why I own it). The drawback to this phone is that even though it has multi-touch, the screen is a tiny 240*320 pixels. Now, I love Android, due to how open it is, but I have an Android-based phone and an iPod Touch 3rd Generation for my music needs(32GB).
When I'm at home, I don't touch my phone near as often as I do my iPod, and when I'm sitting on the couch browsing the web on my iPod, I don't want to have to keep switching to my phone. So my idea is this(And please, tell me if something has been made): If you can have replacement SMS clients such as Handcent and GO, then it should be possible to have an app on your phone that gives you access to your text messages in a browser-- But not just desktop PC browsers(Such as the access given by WebKey or PDA-net), in other mobile browsers, such as Opera Mobile, mobile Safari, etc.
I know it is possible, given the ease of using something like Handcent SMS, and I'm sure it would need root elevation unless there's a good userspace web server, but the question is, has it been done? If not, I'd like to try to get some help in the community with making it.
Sorry for the horrendously long post, but I think it's a good idea that should be attempted, at least.
As a Sprint user
I am also a Sprint user and I'd like to inform you of Sprint's great deal with Google Voice. (As a new user I can't post links so try Google for "Google Voice")
This effectively gives all Sprint users the ability to text via Web or any device with a Google Voice app at no additional cost.
I doubt that it's optimized for mobile browsers of small devices, but MightyText does work on many browsers. If you're ambitious enough, I'm sure you could write a script to optimize the layout yourself for a small device like an iPod. You might want to try downloading the MightyText app (listed as "Free Texting <-> PC SMS Messaging" on the market for some reason) and then going to "mightytext.net/app" on your iPod and seeing how it looks.
Alright, I tried out MightyText, and in the Mobile Safari app, MightyText looks like a scaled down desktop website. It would be cool if they added a Mobile view as well, but so far, it doesn't seem so.
mike12489 said:
I doubt that it's optimized for mobile browsers of small devices, but MightyText does work on many browsers. If you're ambitious enough, I'm sure you could write a script to optimize the layout yourself for a small device like an iPod. You might want to try downloading the MightyText app (listed as "Free Texting <-> PC SMS Messaging" on the market for some reason) and then going to "mightytext.net/app" on your iPod and seeing how it looks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The mobile site for Google Voice is optimized for Mobile viewing. Also the Google Voice app is much better than MightyText as it integrates very tightly with your phone number.
legacyweapon said:
The mobile site for Google Voice is optimized for Mobile viewing. Also the Google Voice app is much better than MightyText as it integrates very tightly with your phone number.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't like the Google Voice app's way of doing things. I don't like that there's not an option to disable notifications from the Google Voice app itself.

Looking for an app to transcribe voice to text (deaf user here)

Hi all!
Im becoming more involved in meetings at my job and Im looking for an app which allows me to put my nexus 7 tablet on the tablet and allow it to listen and type out/transcribe what is going on in the meeting/discussions. It'd be helpful for me since I am deaf/hard of hearing and Im usually lost in meetings. This would help me to follow and to track what is happening during the meeting.
Thanks in advance!
voice -> text
hm in the moment i dont know any software on android who wokrs like you need.
But some steps:
1. you need a voic recorder
2. a voice analytic software
1: i think you need a very good voice recording system, because the detaction rate is much better
2. the only realy good voice system i know is dragon naturally speaking (on Windows system). i used it for some dictations.
-> the libery i think is used in siri iPhone
-> i Use Flex T9 (Android) in my handy for input (swype and voice - great) there a other great tools from nuance. The detaction rate is great
On Android:
EVERNOTE (a great Tool for Collecting an organisation of information) has the possibility - but i dont try it
i would take a good voice recorder (best with a good micro) -> put the Voice File on windows and use nuance tools
on Ipad/Iphone there is a memopad software where you can scribe, paint and record in meetings - i will look for the nam

Any way to change the android voice?

I have tasker run functions, and it sometimes talks to me, now coming from a 2.3 device to a 4.3 I see the voice is different, and it's not terribly nice, are there any alternative voices to try? I know in the past other makers (Samsung) have had different voices)
I'll answer my own question in case anyone else finds this useful.
If you're unhappy with text to speech on your android device, there's several options to try both paid & unpaid.
For me (after extensive research & testing) I found this solution works best.
Svox Classic Text To Speech Engine
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.svox.classic
and the voice I used for maximum clarity & easy on the ears was this:
SVOX US English Grace Voice
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.svox.classic.langpack.eng_usa_fem
Naturally your mileage will vary, but this one worked for me. It doesn't seem to work in google now speech, but in maps (navigation), tasker & FBReadet TTs it does.

Google Speech API: distinguish voices

Hello
I am working on my dissertation & I want to use Google Speech API to distinguish users by there voice.
I have seen and imported the Google Speech API Sample from
https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/android-docs-samples/tree/master/speech/Speech
Before I was trying to use DialogFlow (used to be API.AI), didnt have much luck. Thought it might be better to use Google Speech API instead.
is this even possible to start with?
I was also looking at "Actions on Google"
https://developers.google.com/actions/identity/user-info
thanks for any input
Have you figured out how to achieve it?

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