1. Devices
    1. Kindle
    2. Intel Reader
    3. Reading Pen
  2. Features
    1. Creating audio file to listen to later
    2. Highlighting text as you read it
    3. On USB stick to use on multiple machines
    4. Some do foreign languages
    5. Reading in the parent application vs copy & paste into it
    6. Types of speech sythersize
    7. program controls, including menus, dialogs, list views and messages
    8. Reading web pages - can it figure out the right bits to read?
    9. Typing echo - reading words as you type
    10. How you select text to read
      1. At cursor
      2. Mouse over
      3. Highlighting
    11. Highlight text as you read?
    12. Train it to pronounce some words
    13. Different voices to choose from
    14. Good list of features on dyslexia site
    15. Can it read PDF files?
    16. Options for customising voices?
      1. Adjust pace
      2. Adjust pauses between words
      3. Adjust pitch
    17. Spellchecker
    18. Homophones
    19. Word prediction
    20. Dictionary with definitions
    21. Thesaurus
    22. Study skills support
      1. Highlighting text
      2. Factfinder
      3. Sticky notes
      4. Bookmarks
      5. Vocabulary Lists
    23. Scan from printed page
    24. Voice
      1. Quality of voice
        1. How pleasant the voice is
      2. Pronunciation
        1. How well different words are pronounced
        2. Does it manage abbreviations?
        3. Can it read emoticons?
      3. Intonation
        1. How natural the changes in pitch appear over time
        2. How does it react to questions and exclamations?
      4. Customizability
        1. Range of pitch settings
        2. The number of different, usable voices
      5. Usability at high rates
  3. Products
    1. Commercial
      1. ClaroRead
        1. Integrates with MSWord for proofreading
        2. Integrates with Internet Explorer for web browsing
        3. Dragon echo features - reads back what Dragon has dictated.
        4. Other features
          1. Includes a screen ruler
          2. Converts PDF to accessible format
          3. Includes virtual overlay
          4. Spell checker
          5. Homophone checker
          6. Dictionary
        5. Speech Engine is Nuance Vocalizer
      2. Claro WordRead
        1. Simpler version of ClaroRead
        2. Nuance Vocalizer
      3. TextAloud3
        1. Choice of speech engines
          1. AT&T Natural Voices™
          2. Nuance RealSpeak� Voices
          3. Acapela Voices
          4. Cepstral™ Voices
          5. Older Free Voices
      4. EasyTutor
        1. Runs as a toolbar within MS office applications
        2. Change how text is displayed
        3. Scan documents to read
        4. Convert PDFs into readable format
        5. Highlights text as it reads
        6. Predictive text
        7. Dictionary facility
        8. Detects homophones
      5. WordQ2
        1. Works with all commonly used programmes, MS Office, Notepad, Outlook, wikipedia, web
        2. Word prediction
        3. Thesaurus
        4. Homophone detection
        5. Highlights text as you read
      6. ZoomText Magnifier/Reader
        1. Targeted at visually impaired users
      7. PenFriend
        1. Word prediction
        2. Screen reading
        3. Text Magnification
        4. Spelling, thesaurus, dictionaires
        5. Integration with Clicker
        6. Switch Access
        7. Lexicon Editing and Topic Lexicons
        8. Abbreviation Expansion
        9. Smart puncuation
      8. Chloe
        1. Designed for dyslexics
        2. Features
          1. Overlay
          2. Dyslexic Spellchecker
          3. Speak as you type
          4. Text-to-speech
      9. Web Talkster
        1. Features
          1. Reads web browsers
      10. ReadPlease
        1. Features
          1. Copy & paste system
      11. Kurzweil 3000
        1. Highlights text as you read
        2. Quick access to reference lookup tools
          1. recursive dictionaries
          2. synonyms
          3. syllables
          4. word spelling
        3. Bubble Notes
        4. Study Skills
          1. text highlighting
          2. annotations
          3. voice notes
          4. bookmarks
          5. extraction of outlines
        5. Flexible Writing Tools
          1. check-spelling-while-typing
          2. speak-while-typing
          3. audible spell checker
          4. word prediction
        6. Read the web using FireFox
      12. Natural Reader
        1. Nice voices
        2. Education version includes proof reading tools
      13. Speaking Notepad
      14. Write:OutLoud
        1. Talking word processor
          1. Reads as you type
          2. Revision and editing tools
          3. Phonetic spell checker that reads spelling options
          4. Homonym checker
          5. Dictionary
          6. Bibliography wizard
      15. Read:OutLoud
        1. Study skill support
        2. eBook reader for IDEA format (educational ebook format?)
        3. Supports web browsing
        4. Aimed at students?
      16. Read & Write
        1. Aimed at students?
        2. Toolbar that floats on top of commonly used applications
        3. Overlay tints
        4. Dictionary
        5. Reading ruler
        6. Mouse spotlight
        7. Scans docs
        8. Reads PDF
        9. Can read usually inactive text such as Flash text
        10. Phonetic spell checker
        11. Word prediction
        12. Homophone Checker
        13. Speak as you type
      17. WriteOnline
        1. Aimed at students?
        2. Interesting options, includes a simple mind mapping programme.
      18. TextHelp Read and Write Gold
    2. Free
      1. WordTalk
      2. Balabolka
      3. FireFox Extensions
        1. Free extensions for FireFox Browser. Read web pages aloud
        2. Products
          1. FireVox
          2. Doesn't work with the version of FF we have at work (tho' soon to be upgraded)
          3. ClickSpeak
          4. SpeakingFox
      4. DSpeech
        1. Copy&Paste text into it
        2. Supports all SAPI vocal engines
        3. Download voices separately
      5. PowerTalk 1.2.14
        1. Reads PowerPoint slides aloud
        2. Useful for deaf staff?
      6. ClipSpeak
        1. Copy and Paste text into it
        2. SAPI15 voices
    3. Online only services
      1. ReadtheWords.com
      2. abc2mp3.com
      3. Yakitome
      4. Voki
      5. Spoken Text.net
      6. Text to Speech
      7. Odiogo
  4. Designed for different purposes
    1. Editing text
    2. Getting through reading material
    3. Embedding in websites to read the website aloud
      1. BrowseAloud
  5. Other Interesting stuff
    1. Speed reading software
    2. Reading Pal
    3. Packages that teach skills?
      1. Speed reading
      2. Grammar & spelling
      3. Study skills
      4. Memory
      5. Touch typing
  6. Requirements
    1. How easy are they to learn to use?
    2. Can you teach it to pronounce certain things?
  7. Notes
    1. Some people struggle to train voice recognition programmes because you have to be able to accurately read the training script
    2. Sometimes have to pay extra to get extra voices
    3. What are the requirements of our community?
      1. Do people really know what they want?
        1. Some people haven't got Dragon
        2. Some have, but no training
  8. About Voice Recognition
    1. Intro
    2. Natural vs Intelligible
    3. Serious users want intelligible speech at high rates.
    4. Speech synthesizers have APIs to allow client programmes (apps) to use them.
    5. Voices
      1. In synthesizer
      2. Voices the synthesizer can generate or user-defined snapshots of voices
    6. Types of synthesizers
      1. sample based
        1. concatenation of diphones.
        2. Contain sampes of real human voices, which are processed and put together to create an impression of a human voice.
        3. Pleasant to listen to
        4. Need a lot of space
        5. Not really customizable
          1. Tone
          2. Pitch
          3. Rate
        6. Not good at really high speaking rates
      2. rule based
        1. Create all sound from scratch without any samples of real human voices
        2. As the voice is fully synthetic, it's also fully customizable
          1. Head size
          2. Breathiness
          3. Roughness
        3. Fully synthetic speech is generally more responsive (less delay before it speaks) and scales better to be used at high rates.
      3. sample and rule based
        1. Possible, but rare
        2. Computationally expensive
      4. Do dyslexics have a general preference for intelligible or natural sounding voices?
    7. Synthesizers
      1. Free or commonly available
        1. Microsoft SAPI 4
          1. Sample based
          2. Windows 2000 includes some MS SAPI voices by default
        2. Microsoft SAPI 5
          1. Windows XP includes some MS SAPI voices by default
          2. Sample based
        3. Lernout & Hauspie (LH) TTS 3000
          1. Sample based
        4. Lernout&Hauspie (LH) Speech RealSpeak
          1. Sample based
      2. Highly Intelligible
        1. IBM ViaVoice (also called Eti Eloquence)
          1. Rule Based
        2. Orpheus
          1. Used in Supernova
          2. Rule Based
        3. Orpheus 2.06
          1. Both rule based and sample based voices
        4. Dectalk Software Synthesizers
      3. Natural Sounding
        1. Cepstral
          1. sample based
        2. AT&T Natural Voices
          1. sample based
        3. Infovox (also called Acapella)
          1. sample based
        4. Neospeech
          1. sample based
          2. Used in ZoomText
      4. Others
        1. Festival Speech Synthesis System
          1. Open Source
          2. PC
          3. Linux
        2. Apple Macintalk
        3. eSpeak
          1. Linux