SpeechLab - Granny Mckay's steam-driven computer

[Mathewson]

Yes, Ken Norris is correct and I am slightly wrong:

My statement that RR leverages "any speech capabilities
that may be present in the host operating system" is
correct insofar as those speech capabilities are part of
the OS itself (Macintosh speech has, as Norris points out,
been present since maybe OS 7.5 - certainly Mac OS 8; and
WIN XP has something similar - although it comes with only
one 'silly voice' unlike Mac which comes with many 'really
silly voices' - think 'Zarvox'! -). Norris is correct
insofar as add-ons such as Dragon Naturally Speaking cannot
be manipulated by RR.

Quite honestly - the goofiness of most of the voices
('Agnes' the one designed - I assume - to give people with
vaguely paedophiliac tendencies a buzz, and 'Victoria', the
one to get heterosexual men all worked up - are about as
close as you get to real voices: but, hey, how many real
women say things like "Your hard disk is badly fragmented"
in a voice that really means "lets hop in the sack for a
quick one"?) offered by Macintosh means that:

1. They are virtually incomprehensible to non-native
speakers, and

2. They serve to distract the user from what the message
really is meant to convey.

For my thesis (see last posting) I used my voice - which is
no worse or no better than most people's - but has the
added edge that it is a real voice, not a MacinTalk squawk
that Apple are still palming off after about 8 years as the
latest thing.

I know that there are commercially available 'voices' that
integrate completely into the OS-native speech systems of
both Mac and Windows - I have no experience of them - I
sincerely hope that they are both realistic and worth the
money spent on them . . .

    and there is the rub!

My "Let Me Read Spooky Stories To You.rev" stack uses the
inherent speech capabilities of Mac and Windows XP - I have
spent a tidy $500 dollars on authentic sounding voices for
my Mac; so my stack sounds just right running on my rig. So
I export my stack as a standalone and start marketing it at
vast expense . . .  But the fancy voice on my rig does
(obviously) not go with my program. So, when Granny Mckay
pops my program on her Performa 5200 running Mac OS 8, she
hears 'Spooky Stories' read to her in a voice resembling
the town drunk!

 And, as my real Granny (who, by the way, did not require a
computer with speech capabilities to get her point across)
would say in her unco coorse Arbroath accent - yer ae fou!

sincerely, Richmond Mathewson
__________________________________________________
See Mathewson's software at:

http://members.maclaunch.com/richmond/default.html
_______________________________________
---------------------------------------------------------------
The Think Different Store
http://www.thinkdifferentstore.com/
For All Your Mac Gear
---------------------------------------------------------------