Update: an other video made by AssistiveWare: “Vanessa is three years old and was born with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), a form of autism. Her parents noticed that she was very to herself and knew right away that something was off. About three months ago, Vanessa started using Proloquo2Go on an iPad. Even though her parents were concerned that using a communication solution might further delay her speech development, they trialed Proloquo2Go through the Young Autism Program of DDI. Everyone has been amazed by Vanessa’s approximations and increased attempts to communicate. The app has given her a voice. Now she can finally say what she wants, making more verbalizations and babbling more than before. Vanessa’s speech is growing, and most importantly, she is blossoming as a child. Vanessa lives in New York, United States of America.”

Available on AppStore for $149.00, KType is an assistive communication app for individuals who cannot verbally communicate with ease or speed.

KType can be easily configured to assist individuals with muscle spasms, motor tics, and partial paralysis, as well as those who have trouble reading, writing, and spelling.

The following video will show you how KType is powerful in predicting words and could support unsteady hands, thanks also for the Speech Synthesis of Acapela Group.

Word Wizard is the first application of its kind to really make smart use of speech synthesis. Word Wizard enables kids to compose words and listen to the audio result, and indicates if their spelling is correct.

An educational & recreational application

Through a colorful, simple and intuitive graphic interface, kids drag letters to compose

words and play with the sounds, either as they like or according to their level of writing and reading. Word Wizard allows kids to listen to the pronunciation of letters, words or sentences they compose themselves, tapped by their own fingers, thanks to a movable alphabet.

Acapela, the voice that catches kids’ attention

Acapela speech synthesis handles the talking part of the application by vocalizing any written

text, with a female or male voice. Kids control the game, entering the words they like,

listening to the audio result, checking if the spelling is correct. Seeing, hearing and touching: the multi-sensory approach engages kids completely. And a help button enables them to progress at any time.

This application has been developed by l’Escapadou, a design studio dedicated to the creation of fun, creative and educational applications for iPhone & iPad.

‘L’Escapadou was created right after the launch of the iPad, because we believe we have in our hands an amazing tool to help kids learn and increase their autonomy and creativity, in a fun and rewarding way. Combining Acapela text to speech with the iPad allowed us to create an interactive and talkative interface that captivates the interest of young users. The success of the English and the French versions has proved us right and we are about to launch the German and the Spanish ones.’ adds Pierre Abel, L’Escapadou’s founder.

L’Escapadou is a family-run design studio where the parents develop the applications and the graphic environments, inspired by their 4 and 7 year old kids – the very first beta-testers!

‘Praised by the New York Times as a ‘Speak ‘N Spell for the iPad Generation’ and promoted by Apple, Word Wizard, more than any other educational and recreational application, has made great use of speech synthesis, to favor learning in a very effective and pleasant way. And the enthusiasm of young Word Wizard users has unequivocally proved that!’ adds Lars-Erik Larsson, Acapela group CEO.

Talking movable alphabet or spelling quiz
The application offers 2 modes and a full set of parameters so that it can be adapted to a kid’s age and level of learning

Highlights of Talking Movable Alphabet
- Spell checker draws attention to unrecognized words
- 2 American voices and 1 British voice
- Optional magnetic grid to ease letters’ placement
- Reads all the words as a sentence
- Uppercase or lowercase letters Phonics or letter name when a letter is touched in the alphabet
- voice Transformer (speed, tone) for added fun, 2 backgrounds

Highlights of Spelling Quiz
- 189 word lists of 10 words: Dolch Words, 1000 most frequently used words, body parts, family members, etc.
- Create custom word lists by entering own words and sentences, and even share lists
- Hints are available if kids do not know how to spell a word
- A variety of colorful animations are displayed when a word is completed
- Once a quiz is completed, a report is displayed and fun, interactive animations are available as a reward

Example:

• CNET News: Tapping this app gives special-needs users a voice
• CBS 60 minutes video:

   

TweetSpeaker is the new app from AppCubby.

Enjoy Twitter while on a walk, stuck in traffic, in the kitchen, or on the go. Tweet Speaker lets you listen to news, sports, humor, and the musings of interesting people on Twitter – a sort of live podcast of your Tweets.

Featuring a beautiful user interface, speech tailored for tweets, Tweet Marker support, adjustable reading speed, and Airplay, Tweet Speaker is a fun new way to experience Twitter.

Currently, only the Ryan voice is available. But more voices (and languages) are coming.

Tweet Speaker is available here on iTunes.

TheNextWeb have a really detailed article about this wonderful app.

Tweet Speaker – Listen to Twitter from App Cubby on Vimeo.

Read2Go is the most accessible DAISY ebook e-reader for iOS.

From within the app,  you can browse, search, download, and reach books directly from Bookshare using and highlighting color, and text-to-speech preferences.

The application (compatible iPhone and iPad) is realized by Beneficent Technology, Inc. (Benetech) and give access to the entire Bookshare catalog for their members.

Read2Go Highlights

• Browse and search Bookshare’s entire collection
• Download and automatically unzip books (DAISY 3.0 and 2.02 books)
• Store books on the Read2Go bookshelf
• Connect via blue tooth to specific braille displays to read in braille
• Read books multi-modally (see and hear words at the same time)
• Read in text only or text-to-speech mode with built-in Acapela voices
• Control font size, color, background, reading speed and more!
• Volume purchase discounts available for schools

Read2Go is available on AppStore ($19.99)

Blio

Blio is an free eBook Reader from K-NFB Reading Technology (Kurzweil Technologies-National Federation of the Blind).

Blio is a FREE eReading application that presents eBooks just like the printed version, in full color, and with all of the features you’d want from an eReader.

All eBooks downloaded into Blio can be read with our Acapela voices (voicepacks sold with inAppPurchase, $9.99).

Top Features:

• Displays books in full color, with fonts, pictures, and layout as the publisher intended.
• Download books from the Blio Bookstore (partnership with Baker & Taylor)
• Support for the visually impaired and those with reading disabilities.
• Sync up to five devices so your books can go wherever you go.
• Access all of your content, and download it to your device from anywhere you have an internet connection.
• Block navigation mode intelligently zooms to the next logical text block to simplify reading, even on the smallest devices.
• Multiple reading views, including fixed layout view, single page, dual page, flowed view, or fast reading view*, all kept in sync as you read the book.
• Add notes and highlights to a page, with five color options, saved across your reading sessions.
• Look up phrases or topics in the included browser, without ever leaving the context of your book
• Have Blio read to you with Acapela High Quality Voices, highlighting each word as it does.
• Add free books in PDF, EPUB, or XPS format from iTunes or Safari.

Blio is available on App Store

A patch is ready (check your private ftp) for customer who integrate Arabic voices.

We’ve released an official update of our Text-to-Speech SDK.

Acapela TTS for iOS 1.201 is a Major Update

Here is the list of the main features of this revision:

• Linguistic update of all voices (bug and pronunciation fixes, voice database improvement, etc …)
• New voices and languages!!!

Voice Name	Listen to a Sample
Antoine (French male)
Laia (Female)
Rasmus (Danish Male)
Tracy (USEnglish Female)
Deepa (Indian English Female)
Nizar (Arabic Male)
NizarEng (Arabic English Male)
Leila (Arabic Female)
Mehdi (Arabic Male)
Samuel (Swedish from Finland Male)

(PS: Old Arabic Youssef male voice is removed)

• Enhancement in API:
  • New functions: Lexicon management API (to manage user lexicons text files) with phoneme validity check
  • New textIndex parameter in queueSpeakingString function, passed to delegate when text is done, in order to make the synchronisation easier
  • New function: skipToNextText (to skip the current text and play directly the next one in text queue)
  • New function: attributesForCurrentVoice (to retrieve information about the currently loaded voice) + 5 new parameters into the returned NSArray of attributesForVoices
  • New functions: to set or get the voice shaping parameters (previously only with vct tag)
• Voice Switching: Now possible with \vce\ tag
• Updated TTSDemo sample code: Save/edit texts functionality + User dictionaries management added
• New getter functions to retrieve AudioLevel value from AudioQueue when TTS is playing (useful to animate avatars based on sound level)
• A lot of bug fixes

–> This update is available in the download page.

Please contact your dedicated sales manager for device libraries and voice database update.

Important Note 1:

• We got a report of a problem with the new arabic voices. If you are using arabic voices, please continue to use the 1.105 version until a voice patch is available. (Probably a problem in data)

Important Note 2:

• You should update the voice data. It is really not advised to use voice data from 1.1xx with library 1.2xx (and inversely). If you are implementing InAppPurchase, your updated app with 1.200 have to erase the old data and request a new (free) download from your end-users.

If you want to schedule a short meeting with us (or simply meet during a lunch or a coffee pause), don’t hesitate to contact us through the contact form or through twitter.

Here is the list of the main features of this revision:

• Linguistic update of all voices (bug and pronunciation fixes, voice database improvement, etc …)
• New voices and languages!!!
  

  Voice Name	Listen to a Sample
  Antoine (French male)
  Laia (Female)
  Rasmus (Danish Male)
  Tracy (USEnglish Female)
  Deepa (Indian English Female)
  Nizar (Arabic Male)
  NizarEng (Arabic English Male)
  Leila (Arabic Female)
  Mehdi (Arabic Male)
  Samuel (Swedish from Finland Male)

  (PS: Old Arabic Youssef male voice is removed)

• Enhancement in API:
  • New functions: Lexicon management API (to manage user lexicons text files) with phoneme validity check
  • New textIndex parameter in queueSpeakingString function, passed to delegate when text is done, in order to make the synchronisation easier
  • New function: skipToNextText (to skip the current text and play directly the next one in text queue)
  • New function: attributesForCurrentVoice (to retrieve information about the currently loaded voice) + 5 new parameters into the returned NSArray of attributesForVoices
  • New functions: to set or get the voice shaping parameters (previously only with vct tag)
• Voice Switching: Now possible with \vce\ tag
• Updated TTSDemo sample code: Save/edit texts functionality + User dictionaries management added
• A lot of bug fixes

Stay tuned!