Blio has issued a press release outlining new functions to add voice and text to speech functions on their Blio platform and software for developers to work with, for various Tablet and Slate PC’s.
The Nuance Vocalizer brings on support for more than 30 languages and two voices (“Samantha” and “Tom”) to make the reading experience more natural and alive. Both the Vocalizer and Blio have been optimized to work on a number of different gadgets, such as smartphones and PCs.
So if you want a book read to you aloud then you can do so, without the hassle of downloading large sized audio books. Although with the new software it allows developers to have a new generation of audio books, with different voices in the reading, rather then just the narrator’s voice.
Although, there is no firm price or release date, we can see this software as being pretty expensive, even getting licensed developer copies of many popular text to speech software suits, are all in the hundreds of dollars.
Press Release
“We designed Blio to offer the eBook market a device that fully maintains the integrity of printed media by offering a rich and visually-compelling experience to consumers. However, we wanted to ensure that these visual elements could be enhanced through the power of today’s sophisticated speech technology,” said Ray Kurzweil, voice-recognition inventor and founder of K-NFB. “With Nuance’s speech technology, Blio can now bring words and characters to life in a way that makes the eReader experience even more enjoyable and accessible for book and magazine aficionados everywhere.”
Additionally, Blio will also make Nuance’s text-to-speech technology available to manufacturers developing eReaders or integrating eReader functionality on mobile devices, including tablets, with Blio software. With the availability of Nuance’s robust text-to-speech capabilities, all Blio customers, manufacturers and developers will be able to speech-enable eReader content, allowing consumers to sit back and enjoy the convenience of listening to books, magazines and more.
“Blio truly demonstrates how advances in both eReader and speech technology are coming together to change the way people interact with media,” said Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile. “The combination of Blio’s amazing color-filled, 3D eBooks with our lifelike speech technology offers the market a compelling eReader experience at a time where differentiation and customization are critical.”
More Info at http://www.blioreader.com/
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.