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AssistiveWare

AssistiveWare's Website. Business Line : • Accessibility Applications : • E-Learning • Accessibility tools • Proof reading • Productivity tools

AssistiveWare Success Stories

• GhostReader™ 1.5: the powerful multilingual text-to-speech solution for Mac OS X from Assistiveware adds new Acapela Voices to its portfolio.
  
  
• Educational speech solutions: One Mac, One Voice !
  
  
• BETT 2007: Students and teachers bet on voice with Acapela!
  
  
• Mac OS X : Hear all about TextParrot, the consumer speech solution from AssistiveWare.
  
  
• Acapela TTS voices empower VisioVoice for Mac OS X, AssistiveWare's upcoming product.
  
  
• Acapela speech enables Proloquo multi purpose solution for Mac OS X.
  
  

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

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.

Educational speech solutions: One Mac, One Voice !

Acapela Group and AssistiveWare have launched a number of new educational packages for their Mac OS X speech solutions.

Infovox iVox, the natural sounding voices that work with any Speech Manager compliant Mac OS X application and TextParrot, the powerful but affordable document and selection reader have made a profound impact in the classroom since their release last year. From today, lab and school licenses will be available to teachers and students at all levels of education, improving their access to the software.



In addition, Acapela Group and AssistiveWare have worked closely with the leaders in educational software, Kurzweil Educational Systems in the US and TextHelp Systems in the UK, to ensure that their upcoming software is fully compatible with Infovox iVox. Kurzweil 3000 for Macintosh version 3.0.4 and 4.0, along with TextHelp's Read and Write Gold for Mac version 2.1.0, due for release in late June, are also fully compatible with Infovox iVox. This means that teachers can now use this best-of-breed software along with the cutting edge Infovox iVox voices to enhance the learning experiences of their students.



Educational licenses for TextParrot and Infovox iVox are for internal educational use. For school licenses they permit use by all students and teachers in the school with installation on up to 150 computers. For classroom licenses they permit use in one specific classroom or computer lab with installation on up to 50 computers. Educational licenses do not allow publication of audio files outside the classroom or school.



Schools interested in producing audio files for publishing should contact Acapela Group directly. To install the software on more then the maximum number of permitted computers, multiple classroom or school licences may be purchased. In the case of colleges or universities, a department, chair, or building is considered equivalent to a school.



Both Infovox iVox and TextParrot are Universal Binary enabled and can be used on either PowerPC or Intel Macs. The products include a wide range of natural sounding voices in several languages: US English, UK English, French, Canadian French, German, Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish.



A fully functional downloadable demo and voice samples are available at the following website: Infovox iVox: http://www.assistiveware.com/infovox_ivox.php TextParrot: http://www.convenienceware.com/textparrot.php



For more information contact AssistiveWare directly or one of AssistiveWare's distributors such as Origin Instruments Corporation (http://orin.com) for North America or ordiTICE (http://orditice.com) for France.

BETT 2007: Students and teachers bet on voice with Acapela!

Discover TextParrot during BETT - London, January 10-13, 2007 Booth SN17 Acapela Group, the first European Speech Group, is exhibiting at BETT, the world's leading educational information and communications technologies (ICT) event. Today voice technologies empower educational and accessibility tools, allowing people to learn, communicate and enjoy their lives. This year, Acapela will showcase TextParrot, a brand new product dedicated to all Mac users.

TextParrot, developed in collaboration with the Acapela Group, literally converts any written text into speech and is capable of transforming any type of information in real-time just as the human voice would do.

Imagine that you are a college student and want to review an online lecture or your notes during lunch hour. Let TextParrot convert the text to iTunes and listen to it on your iPod while enjoying your sandwich.

Imagine that you need to get a million and one things done in your office including reading that lengthy document. Let TextParrot read the text to you while you focus on other tasks.

Imagine that you are an actor and need to study your parts while in public transport or in your car. Use TextParrot to convert the text to iTunes and listen to it on your iPod or car stereo.

Imagine that you are a teacher and have a student in your class failing on tests because he or she is a slow reader. Get the student a copy of TextParrot to read the material.

Don't limit your imagination! Visit Acapela at their booth!

Mac OS X : Hear all about TextParrot, the consumer speech solution from AssistiveWare.

AssistiveWare, the world leader in Accessibility solutions for Mac OS X, has just launched TextParrot, the 1st product of its new "ConvenienceWare" family, a set of innovative products designed by AssistiveWare to make advanced technologies available in cool and convenient applications and make the life of Mac users easier. Relax and listen, through a smart interface.

TextParrot 1.0 is a multilingual speech solution for Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their documents with Acapela's natural sounding voices. Users can easily create their own personal podcasts or audio books by exporting to iPod-ready iTunes tracks. They can just use it to speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward and rewind functionality or listen to text by just pointing the cursor at the text and sit back and relax while TextParrot reads the text under the cursor.

Using Acapela text to speech, TextParrot literally converts any written text into speech, capable of transforming any type of information in real-time as flexibly as the human voice would do.

TextParrot has been developed in collaboration with Acapela Group and includes their naturally sounding, high quality voices in US English, UK English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish. Other languages will be made available in the coming months. Note that these special ConvenienceWare voices will not work in other applications.

Let TextParrot speak for you!

Imagine... that you are a college student and want to review the online lecture or your notes during your lunch hour. Let TextParrot convert the text to iTunes and listen to it on your iPod while enjoying your sandwich.

Imagine... that you need to get a million and one things done in your office including reading that lengthy document. Let TextParrot read the text to you while you focus on those other tasks.

Imagine... that you are an actor and need to study your parts while in public transport or in your car. Use TextParrot to convert the text to iTunes and listen to it on your iPod or car stereo.

Imagine... that you are a teacher and have a student in your class failing on tests because he or she is a slow reader. Get the student a copy of TextParrot to read the material.

Discover TextParrot during the BETT on the AssistiveWare/Acapela booth www.bettshow.com, Booth SN17.

TextParrot is a universal binary and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

TextParrot is localized in English and French and other localizations are expected in January. For more information, a fully-functional downloadable demo and to listen to samples of the voices please consult the product page: www.convenienceware.com/textparrot.php

Acapela TTS voices empower VisioVoice for Mac OS X, AssistiveWare's upcoming product.

Designed for blind and vision impaired Mac users, VisioVoice adds multilingual support to Apple's excellent VoiceOver technology as well as provides a number of new speech and vision related features to enhance access to Mac OS X. VisioVoice is designed to remove visual barriers by making it possible for non-English vision impaired users to make use of Apple's VoiceOver while boosting access for all vision impaired users. VisioVoice will also enhance VoiceOver with the naturally sounding, high quality voices of the Acapela Group. A step ahead for AssistiveWare, who has already removed the physical barriers from Mac OS X with KeyStrokes, its virtual keyboard and with SwitchXS, its scanning on-screen keyboard and has taken away language and speech barriers with Proloquo, its multipurpose speech solution, also speech-enabled by Acapela. "Acapela high quality golden tones successfully speech enable Proloquo and open up the TTS multilingual choice for Mac OS X users. VisioVoice will naturally provide Acapela TTS as well, offering to the end user a perfect homogeneous voice persona through the entire speech-enabled interface." said David Niemeijer, AssistiveWare’s CTO. Bundled with VisioVoice, Acapela high quality voices actively contribute to improving accessibility for everyone, offering the most natural interface to users looking at speech technology as a daily tool and essential technology to keep communicating.

Acapela speech enables Proloquo multi purpose solution for Mac OS X.

"Proloquo provides the first full-flegded speech solution for Mac OS X." says David Niemeijer, AssistiWare CTO. "Using Acapela text to speech, it combines the highest quality voices available on the market with powerful, yet easy to use features that serve a wide variety of needs." Multilingual speech feedback and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)

AssistiveWare is the worldwide leader in innovative assistive technology software for Mac OS X. With the addition of Proloquo, AssistiveWare provides to end users a complete solution making daily life easier for thousands of people in the world, in the most natural way, whatever their disability. Proloquo can help people who cannot speak, improves accessibility for people with visual impairments or supports people with learning disabilities through Acapela's speech feedback. It can also be used as a talking processor, as a clip board reader for people who prefer listening to reading, as a pronunciation tool when learning foreign languages and last but not least, provides an advanced, multilingual speech engine for AssistiveWare's KeyStrokes® on-screen keyboard and SwitchXS® switch access solution.

"Proloquo provides the kind of augmentative communication I always hoped for." said Walter Pfrommer, medical adviser in a healthcare IT project. "Now, for the first time after I lost my own voice due to ALS/MND*, even new acquaintances and older persons understand me with ease. Without Proloquo for speech and KeyStrokes for typing, I would no longer be able to work!"

Integrated in Proloquo, Acapela high quality voices actively contributes to improve accessibility for everyone, offering the most natural interface to users looking at speech technology as a daily tool and essential technology to keep communicating.

Proloquo's suggested retail price is USD 299 or Euro 249, including High Quality and/or High Density Acapela voices for a language of choice. The languages currently include US English, UK English, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and Brazilian Portuguese. Acapela voices for additional languages can be purchased as a language pack for USD 119 or 99 Euro.

*Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Motor Neurone Disease