Acapela Group RSS Feed

Language learning and Multilingual content creation: Acapela voice empowers iKnow!.

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

December 1st, 2008

iKnow! users can create language learning audio content using multilingual Acapela Text-to-Speech technology.

The iKnow! social learning platform allows Internet user to learn and remember any language. The iKnow! platform is a collaborative network that lets learners all over the globe leverage and remix content produced by the community. It has been designed to help users learn faster, remember longer, and collaborate on the creation of content.
iKnow! has integrated Acapela text-to-speech in multiple languages - including, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, German, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Danish, and Norwegian -- to automatically generate audio for all created items and sentences. Immediate audio feedback is provided to the iKnow! Community member with speech synthesis to optimise language learning, transforming in a click written words into speech, with Acapela natural and pleasant tones.
"This is a major step in our vision to create the first global social learning platform, one that allows people to share what they know, and learn what they want to know." said Andrew Smith Lewis, founder and chairman of Cerego. "As the largest online English Language Learning site in Japan, now open to the rest of the world, we look forward to empowering users across multiple languages to come together and create the best content available anywhere."
There are currently 340,000 registered iKnow! users, who have spent over 16 million minutes in the applications mastering over 20 million items just in the last 30 days.
About Cerego
Founded in 2000 and based in Tokyo, Cerego empowers people to learn faster, remember longer, and manage their memory for a lifetime. Cerego's iKnow! intelligent social learning platform helps users efficiently encode, store, and retrieve knowledge. Powered by personalized, adaptive learning algorithms that accelerate knowledge acquisition, iKnow! is a new venue for users to create, share, and learn.
For more information, visit www.iknow.co.jp.

Oslo bus terminal: Acapela Voices provide real time traffic information to visually impaired passengers..

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

November 27th, 2008

Oslo bus terminal, one of the biggest in Scandinavia, situated in the heart of the city, with over 10 000 passengers a day, is using Acapela speech synthesis to provide vocalized, real time bus traffic information to people living with visual or reading difficulties.

Inaugurated in March 08, the new information system, designed for the Oslo terminal by Trivector System, features more than 100 large, easy to read displays that ease access to information for passengers and drivers. To provide an equally efficient and comprehensive service to people with reading and visual difficulties, a speech capability has now been added, to provide all passengers with real time information vocalized by Acapela voices.

Speech buttons installed in different places around the bus station and on the main tactile display accurately transform text into speech, and provide real time notification of departure times, destinations and other standard information, as well as, importantly, information on any changes or delays.

'The passenger pushes a button and the information is read to him/her at the same moment as it is shown on the display panels. The buttons are located around the bus terminal as well as on a tactile map with relief and braille, placed in a central part of the terminal', says Klas Odelid, CEO of Trivector System, which has created and installed the system and the tactile map. This latest initiative complements previous information system installations by Trivector System at Oslo's bus terminal, one of the biggest bus terminals in Scandinavia.

'Speech synthesis opens up new opportunities and removes disadvantages associated with traditional voice systems' says Lars-Erik Larsson, CEO, Acapela Group. 'No pre-recording of messages is needed, nor the storage of audio files. You can also give the user the possibility to pick the language of his/her choice for the reading'.

This new and innovative use of Acapela's voice solutions demonstrates once again how Public Transportation Information Systems can benefit from speech synthesis to deliver accurate and automatically updated information to both passengers and operators.

More information about Trivector System AB

Acapela.tv - the sparkling laboratory of Acapela.

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

November 20th, 2008

Acapela.tv - Acapela's fun-packed, interactive showcase
Acapela Group, the vocal solutions expert, is launching a portal that demonstrates how far speech synthesis can help companies develop their brand awareness and add audible value to their content and messages.
Acapela.tv, developed on the back of Acapela's brilliantly successful talking greeting cards, is the latest place to discover innovative, fun and attractive ways to make smart use of speech applications online.
Acapela.tv is a showcase and test playground that shares the possibilities of speech synthesis with Internet users. It vividly demonstrates, and allows the user to evaluate the advantages speech synthesis can bring to many different business and entertainment environments.
Text to speech, which transforms written text into spoken words in real time, opens up new, unexpected, ways to communicate. The Internet user types in his/her own words which are vocalised in real time by Acapela. A single click brings the message to life and gives it meaning, as immediate and effective as the spoken word.
'Acapela.tv is an amazing playground to test and demonstrate the power of voice in creative applications.' underlines Lars Erik Larsson, CEO of Acapela Group. 'It's also a step forward to satisfying communities of fans, from Greenland to Chile, who have become enthusiastic users of talking greeting cards and have widely adopted speech synthesis as a fun and friendly way to communicate'.
Prestigious international advertising agencies have already adopted Acapela's innovative, powerful tool to communicate with their target groups. The latest successful viral marketing campaigns created for Nestlé, Lacoste and T Mobile have got people talking!

SMS2voice: free service in Sweden with www.gratissms.se.

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0100

November 7th, 2008

Free SMS to Voice now a reality on www.GratisSMS.se with technology from Roslab AB and voices from Acapela!
Members of GratisSMS.se, one of the leading free SMS service websites in Sweden, can now send talking messages to friends and family.
This is made possible by voices from the Acapela Group, and technology from Roslab AB, a leader within the field of automatic phone services.
On popular GratisSMS.se, each member is given two free SMS credits a day. (Additional credits can be gained through competitions, offers, recruitment of new members etc.).

To send a talking SMS the member simply clicks on the "Speech SMS" button then writes their message and the phone number of the recipient. The recipient is then called up and the message is read out loud by Acapela's Elin voice.
"By adding Voice to our SMS service, we differentiate GratisSMS from the competition. Feedback from users on this appealing free service is very positive and helps keep our community growing with very active members", says Dennis Gustafsson at GratisSMS.se.
The written messages are vocalised in real time, 24/7, using Acapela's pleasant and highly intelligible voices. GratisSMS.se uses Roslab AB's Automatic Messaging Service to convert text messages into spoken words. GratisSMS is one of the first deployments in Sweden of Roslab's Voice-SMS service using Acapela voices.
"Acapela's natural and high quality Swedish voices translate written messages perfectly into natural speech", says Henrik Roos, CEO of Roslab AB. "We are seeing great interest in this development, in Sweden and other countries."
> Roslab AB is an innovative service provider of Voice-SMS and other automatic phone services and aims to be the leading global provider of Voice-SMS services.
> GratisSMS.se started in October 2007 and in only a year has become one of Sweden's biggest and most popular SMS sites. Every day thousands of members visit GratisSMS.se to send free SMS from the Internet.

An ordinary day at work : interactive web campaign voice- animated by Acapela .

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

October 27th, 2008

IT-Resurs, a Swedish IT recruitment agency, has launched a speech-empowered interactive web campaign to attract highly skilled IT consultants and develop its brand awareness.

Visitors to the campaign site: www.envanligdagpajobbet.se ('An ordinary day at work') are invited to share online some of the fun aspects of their daily life at work - jokes and amusing anecdotes about the world of IT support - by creating a short, quirky film, speech animated by Acapela voices.
In a few clicks, the website visitor easily and quickly produces an animation by creating a main character, and selecting an office and background music. The text to be vocalized is then typed in. The user can choose between 20 different Acapela voices in 10 different languages.
The animation can be viewed immediately on the campaign website and sent to friends and colleagues by copying the direct link in an email. Visitors to the website are asked to give their opinions about the different films.
'Acapela speech synthesis is an excellent tool for building creative and interactive web campaigns that people will remember and talk about. The high quality of the voices and the immediate transformation of texts into naturally sounding speech improve the effectiveness of the campaign', says Jonas Järnfeldt, project leader at Kärnhuset, the Swedish advertising agency which created the campaign.

Kärnhuset has already run several campaigns for IT-Resurs featuring the same family of lego-like characters. This is the first time, however, that the target group has been given the opportunity to actively participate and create content.

With 'An ordinary day at work' Acapela's pleasant tones once again demonstrate that voice solutions can actively contribute to animating high value content, turning multimedia, web animations and interactive marketing campaigns into powerful tools that people will remember and talk about, like the ones recently voice empowered for Lacoste and Nestlé.

Acapela for iPhone: Multilingual speech synthesis available for iPhone applications..

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200

October 21st, 2008

Acapela text to speech, now available for iPhone, allows developers to create vocal applications, in 18 languages and 33 voices.

Acapela Group, the European leader in vocal solutions, launches Acapela for iPhone, a product designed to offer to iPhone community developers a High Quality speech engine specifically adapted to meet their needs.

Applications designed for iPhone and iPod Touch use groundbreaking technologies such as the Multi-Touch interface, the accelerometer, GPS, real-time 3D graphics, and 3D positional audio. With Acapela for iPhone, developers can now easily add a vocal dimension, in 18 languages.
Acapela Group makes available a portfolio of 33 voices to voice empower content and contribute to an ever more intuitive use of applications designed for the Appstore.

Acapela for iPhone has been designed both for developers used to 'mobile' environment software and Mac programmers. Thanks to the High Level API written in Objective C, developers will be able, with a minimum of code lines, to quickly and easily integrate speech synthesis into their application for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Games, educational programmes, finance, health and fitness, productivity, social networking, etc; whatever the application, Acapela text to speech naturally enriches the visual and touch-sensitive interface with pleasant and natural voices.

This SDK, dedicated to the iPhone environment, strengthens the position of the Acapela Group which has closely worked for more than 10 years with those involved in the Apple environment to deliver high quality multilingual speech solutions and ease access to information for everyone. Recognised and widely used by those involved in the Mac environment for the multimedia and Accessibility application fields, Acapela voices now accompany Apple solutions with Acapela for iPhone.
Click on this link to watch short demo videos of Acapela for iPhone .
Technical specifications
- API in Objective C
- Word synchronisation available
- 18 languages - 33 voices HQ
- 2 voice formats available : LF* (~25Mb/voice) and HQ**
- Available end 2008

(*low footprint - **High Quality)

Acapela for iPhone product webpage

Sharing the speech experience from Germany to UAE!.

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0200

October 13th, 2008

Acapela Group will be performing its latest speech products and High Quality languages and brand new voices during Voice Days (Germany), IP Convergence (France) and Gitex (UAE).

Try the Infovox inKey experience for Portable Accessibility anywhere, anytime! .

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0200

Infovox inkey: a smart USB product to open and access any computer running Windows XP and Windows Vista.

September 16th, 2008

Acapela Group, the European leader in speech solutions is ready to ship its flagship brand new product, Infovox inKey, designed to offer to visually impaired people Portable Accessibility.Infovox inKey is a USB product including a powerful SAPI text-to-speech engine and a quick and smart screen reader. It fits in the pocket and empowers the end user with the capability to access any computer, anywhere, anytime.

Infovox inKey is a USB accessibility package that has two main functionalities:

- Portable text-to-speech solution for computers at home and at work. Infovox inKey provides the end user with a powerful SAPI4 and SAPI5 compliant text-to-speech engine to be used on its computers together with its favourite screen reader.

- Portable accessibility solution when on travelling foot and when no other screen readers are available.

Besides the high quality text-to-speech engine, Infovox inKey includes a quick and smart screenreader that lets you access any computer immediately with no need for any installation or administrator rights.

When Infovox inKey is used on the computer as a SAPI compatible Text-to-Speech engine, the end user can also choose to install the engine locally on the hard disk to increase performance of text-to-speech.

Infovox inKey comes with a wide portfolio of more than 20 languages, most of them including 2 qualities: PRO and Standard voices. PRO voices are High Quality voices which provide the highest level of quality available, providing smooth sound and pleasant intonations. Standard voices are high density voices that provide higher flexibility and demand fewer resources. Both male and female voices are available on Infovox inKey for most languages.

With Infovox inKey, Acapela reinforces its aim to make computers accessible to everyone. Acapela's vision of interfaces is rooted in natural dialogue: simple, intuitive and accessible to invent a new, stimulating way to use and benefit from information technologies. And voice solutions have a key role to play.

More information on the Infovox inKey product datasheet

Voice-SMS: Roslab chooses Acapela speech synthesis to add value to its Voice-SMS Corporate offer. .

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0200

July 2nd, 2008

Roslab AB, a leading provider of high end Voice-SMS services for the Corporate market, has chosen Acapela text to speech to give a voice to its worldwide Automatic Messaging Service.

Voice SMS services allow companies to optimise information flow, to ensure important information is received and generated automatically as well as collect information through interactivity. Emergency alerts, staff notifications, stock market alerts, prescription warnings, reminders and interactive surveys can all be conveyed by voice, using the SMS platform and TTS capability. Acapela text to speech vocalises the information - whatever the content- 24/7, with pleasant and highly intelligible voices, for high end service.

"Acapela's wide speech synthesis portfolio of High Quality languages and voices is a perfect fit to our global Voice-SMS service" says Henrik Roos - CEO of Roslab AB.

Roslab high quality and cost efficient Voice-SMS service has been designed to be easily tailor-made to meet each corporate client needs, for deployments worldwide.

By adding multilingual speech synthesis capability, SMS becomes more efficient, reliable as well as personalised. Acapela's very natural tones contribute to providing to corporate customers powerful yet easy to use communication tools, in many languages and choice of voices.

Created in 2004 and based in Sweden, ROSLAB AB is an innovative service provider of Voice-SMS and other automatic phone services. ROSLAB aims to be the global leading provider of Voice-SMS services in the corporate market.
Roslab website

Extrême-Nestlé Advergame: Acapela TTS plays opposite. .

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

June 18th, 2008

JWT Paris and Grouek join their know how to offer to internet users the chance to create their own short movies online, with their own dialogs, using Acapela speech synthesis.
www.extreme-studio2cine.fr was designed and developed for Extrême® by Nestlé®.
A premiere in the « user-generated-content » field: each Internet user can direct his own movie on the Internet using an interactive editing desk. In short, the movie is about 4 people willing to do anything to get an Extrême® ice cream!
A premiere for Acapela too, who gets top billing: Acapela text to speech is used to vocalise the dialogs created online by each Internet user.
The interface is very simple. A virtual editing desk with three tracks (video, dialogs and music) enables the user to elaborate the film. The user chooses among silent scenes and music categories and types their own dialogs. That's where Acapela speech synthesis comes in!
The Director can select a different Acapela voice for each actor. He can then listen to the result of the typed in dialog, correct and modify it. Once validated, speech synthesis gives the 'final say' to the film, which is ready to be screened. Online, with one click!
The last step is the creation of the poster, with its custom title and Director pseudonym, using the poster generator. The full screen video and the fancy design put the user in the detective mood.

Many films have already been directed. The best movie will receive an award and will be shown during an entire week on the Champs Elysées in Paris in no less than 13 movie theaters!

Meet Uncle SAM: A Powerful New Viral Tool for Online Marketers.

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

June 16th, 2008

Acapela Group and Makebeliever Productions announce the release of their Voice-animated messaging solution Demo, featuring Uncle Sam.

Voice-animated messaging offer marketers the ability to quickly and efficiently promote their brands and products online and internet users the opportunity to send friends, family, and colleagues truly personalized and engaging messaging through a beloved American icon, Uncle Sam.
Acapela Group, a worldwide innovative player in vocal solutions and MakeBeliever Productions, a U.S. based multimedia online marketing solutions provider, have partnered to offer marketers Voice-animated messaging, a powerful new solution to create online viral brand awareness.

Based on the huge success of Acapela's smart talking-characters, which are already used from Greenland to Chile to read aloud in real-time any typed in text, Acapela is now associating its expertise with MakeBeliever's multimedia and online marketing knowledge to make Uncle Sam speak out loud. This partnership demonstrates how talking user-generated content and animation can benefit from speech synthesis to increase brand and product awareness, through an efficient, engaging, personalized consumer interface that people will remember and talk about.

Voice-animated messaging enables marketers to harness the power of speech synthesis and Flash animation to create memorable and humorous user generated content messaging campaigns from their website of choice featuring their company's logo, tagline, and other brand or product-related information. Voice-animated messaging empowers internet users to create greater online awareness of your brand and your products/services. Unlike traditional online advertising that creates a single generic exposure to a marketer's messaging and is often delivered at a highly inopportune time, Voice-animated messaging enables marketers to leverage the power of their consumers to facilitate multiple impressions for each unit generated and doing so on the customers own terms without the invasiveness of traditional online advertising. Access the DEMO page to create and experience Voice-animated messaging for yourself.
With the release of Uncle Sam, the two companies are strengthening their relationship started in December 2007 with the realization of an innovative Christmas online messaging application featuring a real actor and speech enabled by Acapela text to speech to deliver, straight from the mouth of Santa Claus, recipient specific information, all without the need for any post-production processing.
As a marketer, you can choose to leverage our suite of existing characters and voices or work with us to efficiently and affordably create custom characters and voices in as little as two weeks. In either scenario, you are able to choose colour schemes, links, and visual content associated with your brand, and provide input on other creative "look and feel" elements.
Furthermore, the Voice-animated messaging solution delivered by Acapela Group and MakeBeliever Productions is highly affordable and vitually any marketer, large or small, can apply the capability within its established budgeting. Best of all, the pricing (beyond a low minimum) is performance-based, meaning that the marketer is only responsible for payment as its messages are generated and distributed by consumers. We can even specify a fee cap, ensuring that the marketer does not spend a dollar beyond what is budgeted for a campaign. The Voice-animated messaging solution represents unprecedented value in online marketing and delivers exceptional results.
www.makebeliever.com

Audio Books: Acapela speech empowers Dolphin EasyReader, the missing link in Microsoft's 'Save As DAISY XML' plug in.

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

June 12th, 2008

EasyReader version 3 is unveiled.
One month after MicroSoft's landmark launch of 'SAVE AS DAISY XML' on the 7th May 2008, Dolphin Computer Access Limited unveil the first DAISY player, speech enabled by Acapela voices, to support the DAISY DTBook format created by Microsoft's free Word plug-in.

After close collaboration with the Microsoft and the DAISY consortium, EasyReader version 3 is the only software DAISY player to support the DTBook output or DAISY XML files created by the free Word download.

Dan Hubbell, technical evangelist for the Accessibility Business Unit at Microsoft says "EasyReader and the Microsoft 'Save As DAISY XML' plug-in create a really exciting opportunity for visually impaired and print impaired people, giving them the ability to easily create, read and listen to their own fully synchronised DAISY materials. Microsoft's 'Save as DAISY XML' Plug-in and EasyReader are a powerful combination that will enable the rich DAISY experience to be brought to even more readers worldwide."

Microsoft's recognition of DAISY as the World's fastest growing alternative format has seen the DAISY profile soar. But for many DAISY readers, the MicroSoft Word DAISY XML Plug-in represented only a part of the solution.

Ron Stewart Vice President of Dolphin Computer Access Inc and Technical Adviser to AHEAD explains "the 'save as DAISY' option allows Word users to generate Daisy XML files and not full Daisy books. However, the Daisy XML file is one part of the technology that goes into making even a simple text only Daisy book".

"EasyReader version 3 not only supports DTBook output, but also reads aloud the DAISY material whilst synchronizing the words providing the complete DAISY reading experience that visually impaired, print impaired and dyslexic readers wouldn't be without."

Already available in 15 languages, EasyReader now comes bundled with the high quality Acapela synthesisers ensuring readers can listen to their own DAISY materials, in their language of choice, with the most natural sounding voices available.

Hazel Shaw, Dolphin's Group Marketing Manager explains "DAISY readers quite rightly insist on only the best synthesisers. The Acapela voices are clean, crisp, and bursting with the character required for true reading pleasure, excellent information retention and bring the whole DAISY experience to life."

Lars Erik Larsson, Acapela's Group CEO says "EasyReader, supporting the DAISY XML files created by Word and read by Acapela, is another major step in the DAISY roadmap. Dolphin has been steering the development of DAISY creation and DAISY playing tools for many years. Acapela are delighted to partner with Dolphin Computer Access in helping to ensure the continued growth and success of the World's most widely used assistive technology format, DAISY. Both organisations are committed to providing equal access to the written word for the benefit of the wider accessibility community".

-------
Editor Notes:
1.    Dolphin Computer Access create software solutions that deliver independence to visually impaired, print impaired and dyslexic people. These software solutions range from screen reading and magnification software to a range of simple and sophisticated tools to create DAISY and other alternative format creation tools. Designed and developed in the UK, Sweden and the US since 1986, Dolphin's tools are available in over 15 different languages for their worldwide audience.

2.    EasyReader is the World's most popular software DAISY book player and enables the reader to listen and read their book through a combination of synchronised audio, highlighted text and images. Unlike other audio books, readers can easily navigate their book moving or skipping by word, sentence, paragraph or by searching for phrases.

3.    Acapela Group gives a voice to all types of products and services. Acapela invent voice solutions to give the say to content and enrich user interfaces in a natural and intuitive way. Acapela are a key player in voice technology industry with over 25 years of experience. Acapela offer a complete range of products, services and expertise in 25 languages and over 50 voices.

4.    The Microsoft 'DAISY XML Plug In' Press Release

5.    Research by the International Dyslexia Association says that Up to 20% of people may be subject to dyslexia or another form of language-based learning disability.

6.    Research by the World Health Organisation at www.who.int says that over 161 million people worldwide are blind or otherwise visually impaired.

GhostReader(tm) 1.5: the powerful multilingual text-to-speech solution for Mac OS X from Assistiveware adds new Acapela Voices to its portfolio..

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

June 5th, 2008

GhostReader reads aloud PDF, Word and other documents as well as selected text in any application using Acapela High Quality voices. It can also convert any text to audio files, MP3s, or bookmarkable audiobooks for playback on iPhone and iPod.
GhostReader 1.5 adds new Acapela voices (Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finnish), enhanced iPhone/iPod export, a pronunciation editor and much more. Sit back and relax while GhostReader reads for you!GhostReader can be used by anyone who prefers to listen to text rather then read it.
Many professionals, writers, educators and students use it on a daily basis to save time, to proof read their own writing or to learn the pronunciation of foreign languages or to improve their reading and listening comprehension.
GhostReader 1.5 is a free update for existing users. Pricing for GhostReader starts at 39.95 Euro/USD excluding VAT for a single-user monolingual.

AssistiveWare is the worldwide leader in innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X that gives people back their lives.

ISO certification: Acapela Group announces a milestone achievement in becoming ISO 9001:2000 certified.

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0200

June 3rd, 2008

Acapela Group, a key player in the innovative and advanced market of speech solutions, is proud to announce that it has gained ISO 9001:2000 certification.

This international standard recognizes and validates Acapela's dedication to customer satisfaction, which has always been central to the company's philosophy and way of working.
ISO 9001 is accepted worldwide as the international standard that endorses a company's internal Quality Management, confirms its products and services satisfy customers' quality requirements.
Acapela Group has been awarded ISO 9001:2000 certification for the company's development of software, production of linguistic resources, and related support and consulting services.
In order to perfect its Quality Management system and achieve certification Acapela Group underwent a stringent evaluation process. This included a pre-audit assessment, a review of documentation, and clearance of non-conformances.
Acapela Group received its ISO 9001:2000 certificate of registration on February 25, 2008.
« The certification of compliance with ISO 9001:2000 recognizes that the policies, practices and procedures of our corporation ensure consistent quality in the products and services we provide to our customers. With this certification, they can be confident that Acapela Group is -more than ever- dedicated to maintaining the highest effectiveness and responsiveness in achieving our goal of total customer satisfaction. » said Lars-Erik Larsson, CEO of Acapela Group.

Tennis: Acapela speech empowers the future of Lacoste with Megalos web agency..

Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 29th, 2008

"Let's reinvent the game": for its 75th anniversary, Lacoste are inviting Internet users to give their say on what tennis will look like in 75 years time.
A 3D movie gives a preview of what it could be, featuring a futuristic, spectacular, but realistic man, playing tennis.
The Internet user is invited to share his vision through a contributory rubric, where Acapela's text to speech can literally speak his mind!
The website comes in 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) with the corresponding Acapela High Quality voices, in both male and female voices.
Acapela's pleasant tones once again demonstrate that voice solutions can actively contribute to animating high value content, turning multimedia, web animations and interactive marketing campaigns into powerful tools that people will remember and talk about.
The website will be promoted in France, Germany, Italy and Spain with a strong advertising campaign including YouTube, Dailymotion, Eurosport, TennisChannel and a 2 day specific animation on Google's european welcome pages.
Don't hesitate to speak your mind, in the language and voice of your choice and express it to the Lacoste Internet users, and share the speech experience too!

Accessibility and Bank Services : major French banks CIC and Crédit Mutuel choose Acapela's synthetic voice to facilitate use of their ATMs.

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 21st, 2008

French Banks CIC and Crédit Mutuel are improving Accessibility to their banking services by making their ATM (Automated Teller Machine) accessible to the visually impaired with Acapela's synthetic voice.
This is another initiative that helps clients to use their services autonomously and to take advantage of the availability of their cash dispensing machines 24/7.By integrating synthetic voice these banks choose to vocally accompany their clients and simplify their daily lives.

By having chosen Acapela Group's text-to-speech , Euro Information, the subsidiary of the Crédit Mutuel-CIC group which manages the ATMs, has favoured a technology which will allow it to quickly respond to a growing demand for improved accessibility services with very natural voices.
New ATMs are equipped with a jack-socket which is easy to locate and a keypad with keys specifically designed so they can be identified by the visually impaired and the blind. When the client plugs in his headphones or earphones (jack socket 3.5mm) the ATM switches from showing information on the screen to a money withdrawal service with vocal assistance. Today, thanks to Acapela's synthetic voice, users are guided throughout the process with a natural voice that can be easily understood. Vocal instructions guide the client in the choice of language used (French/English), in the insertion of the bank card, in the keying in and confirmation of the amount to be withdrawn, in the keying in of their confidential code, and in the retrieval of the money, the ticket and the bank card. It is also possible to obtain vocal assistance in case problems arise when using the cash dispenser.
This vocal accompaniment will be installed on 1300 ATMs in 2008 and all new cash dispensers will be automatically equipped with Acapela's synthetic voice.
"Acapela Group has been committed for a long time to serve the Accessibility community. We are proud to have been selected by Euro Information to help ease the daily lives of thousands of users. This implementation of Acapela's synthetic voice on numerous ATMs in France and its overseas dependencies is fully in line with Acapela's philosophy of making information available to everyone", says Lars Erik Larsson, CEO of Acapela Group.

Brand new Acapela High Quality languages and voices: Czech, Finnish and Polish languages and an additional Swedish voice..

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 21st, 2008

- Eliska (Czech) Sanna (Finnish) and Ania (Polish) join the Acapela High Quality Multilingual offer and enrich the portfolio with pleasant and very natural female voices.

- Elin joins the existing Swedish voice family with a new outstanding voice persona.
Test the new voices with your own words

Smart talking companion: Tux Droid, the penguin designed by Kysoh for the Linux community, speaks with Acapela speech synthesis..

Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 15th, 2008

Tux Droid, the smart talking penguin designed by Kysoh for the Linux community, speaks with Acapela speech synthesis.Tux Droid is a wireless programmable robot specifically designed at the beginning for the Linux platform.
This smart companion can flap his wings, dance around, talk, blink his eyes, and all the other stuff you can imagine.Thanks to Acapela tones, Tux speaks and can talk to you to pass on messages, emails, info such as weather forecasts, sports bulletin and so on. Acapela tones voice empower Tux and contribute to make it a useful talking companion, interactive and funny!
"The naturalness of Acapela text to speech is a key element in turning Tux alive and give him a true personality through vocal dimension!" comments Thierry Nancy, Managing Director and co-founder from Kysoh.
The architecture is completely open, all code and datasheets are provided by Kysoh directly on their community website www.tuxisalive.com .
About Kysoh
Kysoh aimed to develop and market high tech interactive companions which 1st proof is Tux Droid. Kysoh plans to become a premiere provider of smart companions that can assist you of anything happening on your computer by opening a new window on the digital world.They plan to offer high quality, funny and unusual products integrating new technologies and dedicated to entertainment for an affordable and moderate price.
www.kysoh.com

Acapela Voice Factory performs companies' vocal charter.

Wed, 07 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

May 7th, 2008

Companies invest huge budgets to perfect their image. Now Acapela Group can make their image really speak for them with an exclusive, synthetic, voice persona.
Most ads and billboards transmit a message to the consumer, but it is silent, without sound. Acapela Voice Factory allows companies to audibly communicate their identity and speak volumes using tailor-made voice branding, with their own, consistent synthetic voice.

Performing brand audio identity
Acapela Voice Factory allows companies to achieve better focused market recognition. It complements and enhances their visual branding. Designed to perform the 'voice charter' through any audio touch point, this highly competitive solution provides companies with a very natural and pleasant synthetic voice, which builds on their brand identity, increases consumer confidence and extends their business into new markets and services.

Expanding the corporate brand identity - differentiating services
A growing number of providers in the Telecom, Multimedia, Mobility and Automotive sectors are increasingly integrating speech solutions as a standard component into their product.
The latest trends now focus on voice customisation. Companies want to differentiate themselves with an exclusive, consistent voice that distinguishes them from the competition.

Acapela Voice Factory, which can create up to one hundred new voices every year, accurately reproduces a given voice (including celebrity ones) in a short space of time.
Voices are initially recorded in the studio with the selected speaker and are then analysed, sliced and orchestrated to develop a synthetic voice that remains true to the original recording.

Acapela Voice Factory is the result of in-depth research into recording, segmentation and fine tuning methods used in the text-to-speech production process. Using expertise and industry insight, the Acapela Voice Factory has been designed to develop in a few weeks natural, exclusive voices at an unbeatable price.
- For companies already relying on a Voice Talent linked to their Corporate identity, Acapela Voice Factory offers an ideal way to make the initial investment perpetual.

- Creating an Audio-Brand with one or many characters is also possible through harnessing powerful text-to-speech engineering.

- Flexible and interactive promotions and advertisements and domain-optimized voice applications are also benefiting from Acapela Voice Factory, opening new, innovative, marketing opportunities. (Check out Acapela's talkative characters on the Acapela website).

With Acapela Voice Factory, text-to-speech solutions become much more than just technology - they enrich the capacity of applications, enabling companies from all sectors to reinforce their corporate identity and branding.

Test the online demo and let the Acapela voice speak to you in your own words.

Try the Infovox inKey experience for Mobile Accessibility anywhere, anytime! .

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0200

A smart USB product to open and access any computer running Windows XP and Windows Vista.

May 6th, 2008

Acapela Group, the European leader in speech solutions, will unveil to end users during the Sight City Fair its flagship brand new product, Infovox inKey, designed to offer to visually impaired people Mobile Accessibility.
Infovox inKey is a USB product including a powerful SAPI text-to-speech engine and a quick and smart screen reader. It fits in the pocket and empowers the end user with the capability to access any computer, anywhere, anytime.
Infovox inKey is a USB accessibility package that has two main functionalities:
- Portable text-to-speech solution for computers at home and at work. Infovox inKey provides the end user with a powerful SAPI4 and SAPI5 compliant text-to-speech engine to be used on its computers together with its favourite screen reader.
- Portable accessibility solution when on travelling foot and when no other screen readers are available. Besides the high quality text-to-speech engine, Infovox inKey includes a quick and smart screenreader that lets you access any computer immediately with no need for any installation or administrator rights.

When Infovox inKey is used on the computer as a SAPI compatible Text-to-Speech engine, the end user can also choose to install the engine locally on the hard disk to increase performance of text-to-speech.
Infovox inKey comes with a wide portfolio of 22 languages, most of them including 2 qualities: PRO and Standard voices. PRO voices are High Quality voices which provide the highest level of quality available, providing smooth sound and pleasant intonations. Standard voices are high density voices that provide higher flexibility and demand fewer resources.
Both male and female voices are available on Infovox inKey for most languages.
With Infovox inKey, Acapela reinforces its aim to make computers accessible to everyone. Acapela's vision of interfaces is rooted in natural dialogue: simple, intuitive and accessible to invent a new, stimulating way to use and benefit from information technologies. And voice solutions have a key role to play.
The Acapela team will be happy to welcome you to the Acapela booth to discover and test its latest innovations.
Sight City - May 7-9 - Frankfurt, Germany.
More about Infovox inKey

Acapela Multimedia 6.2: 4 new voices and optimised speech result for all voices..

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

April 30th, 2008

Acapela Group adds 4 new High Quality voices to its speech engine designed to speech empower multimedia applications.
- Elin (Swedish), Sanna (Finnish), Ania (Polish), Eliska (Czech) join the cheerful family of pleasant synthetic voices from Acapela and enrich the large portfolio of 22+ languages already available to give the say to multimedia worlds.
- The latest improvements on the language processing module allow enhanced analysis of the text for an optimised speech result, for the benefit of all the Acapela Multimedia voices.
Using Acapela Multimedia, your end users learn, share, progress with a Voice-mate, freeing them from screen and keyboard dependence and inspiring new interactions.
Read more about Acapela Multimedia

Infovox Desktop new voices.

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

April 30th, 2008

Infovox Desktop adds two High Quality voices, Elin (Swedish female) and Sanna (Finnish female) to its language portfolio. Two new tones to voice empower your computer to let you access information through your favourite screen reader, screen magnifier or any other application supporting speech.
More information about Infovox Desktop

Infovox iVox 1.2 adds new voices and a pronunciation editor.

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

April 30th, 2008

Infovox iVox provides natural-sounding voices for multiple languages that work with virtually any Speech Manager compliant Mac OS X application.
Infovox iVox 1.2 is a free upgrade for existing users which features a pronunciation editor that allows users to add abbreviations or change the pronunciation of words.
It also introduces a number of new voices and languages: Eliska and Sabrine for Czech, Ania for Polish, Snorri for Icelandic, Sanna for Finnish, Elin for Swedish, and Baris and Ceren for Turkish. The Czech, Polish, Icelandic and Turkish voices require Mac OS X 10.5. The other voices require 10.3.9 or later.More information about Infovox iVox

Acapela Group joins the Accessibility Interoperability Alliance (AIA).

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0200

April 2nd, 2008

Initiated by the Accessibility industry, the AIA is a group of leading Information Technology (IT) and Assistive Technology (AT) companies, content providers, and other key engineering organizations, working to create and harmonize standards for accessible technology.

Leaning upon its long and rich history of focusing on Accessibility issues, Acapela has naturally joined this initiative to contribute, for the Vocal part, to improving the daily lives of thousands of users.

AIA members will collaborate on specific engineering projects intended to increase interoperability between existing technologies, and will design new technologies or solutions to resolve many of the long-standing challenges associated with developing accessible products. The group's results are expected to yield improved developer guidelines, tools and technologies, lower development costs, and increase accessibility innovation throughout the industry.

Acapela's dedication and commitment to the Accessibility community puts the company in an excellent position to face global thinking on Accessilibity issues. It is not anymore the concern of some specific users, but a global mainstream widely integrated in the daily life, for many of us. Acapela's vision of interfaces is rooted in natural dialogue: simple, intuitive and accessible to invent a new, stimulating way to use and benefit from information technologies. And voice solutions have a key role to play.

AIA website

Viral marketing: Spread the word over with Acapela's bunny..

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 +0100

March 12th, 2008

Send your own talking greetings for free in any of the 14 languages available.
Just hear how Acapela speech synthesis can be used for viral marketing to spread your words and marketing messages and increase your brand or product awareness. Through an efficient, eye-catchy, personalised consumer interface that people will remember and talk about.
Click here to send your talking greetings to your contacts and friends.