RE: TTS from web content?

>"I think this would be a great addition to the realm of existing assistive
>technologies. Having Javascript API access to the OS's built-in TTS would
>enable us to generate audio descriptions for videos directly from the web
>page in conjunction with ARIA live regions, for example. Such a capability
>should be togglable by the user and/or disabled if a screen reader is
>detected (although a shortcut key-based approach may be sufficient)."
Not sure I understand this. A TTS will voice available text. An audio
description in a video describes the scene between dialogs / pauses in the
main soundtrack. The content of the audio description  is not available as
text as part of video usually but is an audio recording as my understanding
goes.
Sailesh Panchang
Accessibility Services Manager (Web and Software)
Deque Systems Inc. (www.deque.com)
11130 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #140,
Reston VA 20191
Phone: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com

-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Léonie Watson
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 4:02 AM
To: Victor Tsaran; David Bolter; wai-xtech@w3.org
Subject: RE: TTS from web content?

"I think this would be a great addition to the realm of existing assistive
technologies. Having Javascript API access to the OS's built-in TTS would
enable us to generate audio descriptions for videos directly from the web
page in conjunction with ARIA live regions, for example. Such a capability
should be togglable by the user and/or disabled if a screen reader is
detected (although a shortcut key-based approach may be sufficient)."

	Agreed, it really would open up some terrific possibilities.
Handling the relationship with screen readers will certainly be a challenge,
as I can imagine times when both/neither would be desirable from the user's
point of view.


Regards,
Léonie.

--
Nomensa - humanising technology

Léonie Watson            |  Director of Accessibility
t. +44 (0)117 929 7333    


-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Victor Tsaran
Sent: 19 August 2010 22:27
To: David Bolter; wai-xtech@w3.org
Subject: RE: TTS from web content?

Hi David,
I think this would be a great addition to the realm of existing assistive
technologies. Having Javascript API access to the OS's built-in TTS would
enable us to generate audio descriptions for videos directly from the web
page in conjunction with ARIA live regions, for example. Such a capability
should be togglable by the user and/or disabled if a screen reader is
detected (although a shortcut key-based approach may be sufficient). The
power of this feature will depend on how many of OS's built-in TTS
properties will be exposed by the browser to the Javascript developer, eg
voice rate, tone, pitch, voice, person, volume etc.

Is Firefox going to be one such browser? :) Thanks, Victor

-----Original Message-----
From: wai-xtech-request@w3.org [mailto:wai-xtech-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of David Bolter
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2010 8:22 AM
To: wai-xtech@w3.org
Subject: TTS from web content?

  Hi all,

What do you think about having browsers provide built-in text-to-speech
capability to web content? While I imagine a declarative approach might be
quite interesting I think we can go farther faster with a JavaScript API
approach. The main two concerns I have are:

1. We don't want to encourage unpolished aural interfaces.
2. We don't want to conflict with traditional screen readers.

The biggest potential I see is:

1. Innovation in Aural interfaces. The same kind of innovation we see
happening in visual DHTML interfaces.
2. TTS solutions in places, and on devices where traditional screen readers
are problematic. For example, perhaps on some mobile devices that are
currently not accessible.
3. The TTS can be done in the browser, on the native platform (e.g. 
Voice Over on OSX), or 'in the cloud'. We just need to get the API right.

Are we ready? Please speak up.

cheers,
David

Received on Thursday, 26 August 2010 21:19:55 UTC