The American Printing House for the Blind Has Chosen AT&T Natural Voices for Assistive Products

PITTSBURGH - The American Printing House for the Blind (APH) has chosen Wizzard's speech technology solution of ATandT's Natural Voices Software Development Kit for use in several of their assistive products.  The American Printing House for the Blind, founded in 1858, is a not-for-profit company that creates educational, workplace and life-style products and services for visually impaired people.

"We selected Natural Voices to provide our customers with the most human sounding synthesized speech possible," said Larry Skutchan, technology project leader for the Department of Educational Research for APH.

ATandT Natural Voices is currently being used in the APH's Talking Typer software, a computer keyboarding and typing training product that speaks and displays educational lessons on screen. Talking Typer allows the user to participate in typing drills, practicing exercises and typing games, and is adjustable to the user's level of skill and sight impairment.

Natural Voices is also providing speech output for APH's Talking Word Puzzles, an accessible word puzzle program that provides speech feedback and an animated character while navigating through word puzzle grids.

In addition, Natural Voices is powering their Book Wizard Reader. Book Wizard Reader is a program to read digital talking books as outlined in the specifications designed and approved by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) and the Digital Audio Information System (DAISY) consortium. The program adheres to the Digital Talking Book 3.0 definitions and provides the user with enhanced ability to control and navigate through both structured and unstructured audio files.

Skutchan noted Natural Voices will soon be used in Teacher's Pet, an accessible test creation and administration program for parents or teachers as well as used in Money Talks, an accessible banking account management program