IVONA Text to Speech for Developers

Introduction

IVONA Text to Speech, award winning developer and provider of text-to-speech technology, is enjoying tremendous uptake of its recently launched IVONA for Developers initiative within the accessibility marketplace.

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The initiative allows developers of all kinds to access the IVONA Speech Cloud or IVONA Software Development Kit (SDK) via the www.ivona.com/developer portal.

IVONA is the TTS solution of choice for a wide range of organizations, corporations and individuals focused on developing assistive technology applications and devices to improve the lives of the disabled and visually impaired.

Accessibility-focused organizations and companies using IVONA TTS include:

• The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB);
• HIMS in its Braille Sense OnHand, the voice-enabled Braille note-taker series, with digital compass and GPS receiver built-in;
• NPN and E-Lektor are using IVONA voices in DAISY books readers;
• Levelstar, a development and manufacturing company dedicated to creating tools that "level the playing field for the visually impaired" plans to embed IVONA in a number of upcoming devices.

Marc Mulcahy is co-founder, developer, and chief product engineer at LevelStar. Marc is also blind and had this to say about IVONA:

"When it came time to select a text-to-speech partner for our next-generation products, IVONA TTS was the obvious choice. Not only are their voices extremely natural, but they perform well at the device level and are intelligible at high speeds, something that's very important to our users."

"IVONA for Developers is a broad-based initiative designed to help anyone integrate the highest quality voices available into their devices and applications", said Lukasz Osowski, CEO of IVONA.

"The response from the accessibility marketplace has been incredible since the launch last month. We are seeing the emergence of new and exciting applications and devices using IVONA voices and are very pleased to be playing a key role in improving the lives of the visually impaired."

An example of a unique new accessibility project enabled by a single developer and the IVONA Developers Initiative is the Talking TV Guide.

Created by Ian Sharpe, a visually impaired application developer who is also a champion member of the Great Britain Paralympics Team. Ian's Talking TV Guide allows users to hear and interact with TV listings on any computer or web-enabled mobile device so they can easily access program information and have a productive and pleasant learning experience. In his words: "Winning is all about commitment, passion and focus. This carries over into my work. My passion is to make the web easier to use and I think the Talking TV Guide reflects this". More information on Talking TV Guide can be found at www.ivona.com/TalkingTVGuide

"IVONA for Developers" (www.ivona.com/developer), formally launched in February, is designed to offer everything a developer might need to incorporate text-to-speech functionality into an application or device. Through the portal, developers and manufacturers can access the IVONA Speech Cloud Service, which received in excess of 50 million hits in February Alone, and SDK downloads for Android, Windows 7 and Linux, with iOS, QNX and RIM/BlackBerry coming soon.