Re: Aural/Speech Media type

On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 04:21:55PM -0400, Ryan Cannon wrote:
> 
> David Woolley wrote:
> >>So what is the "proper" media type for stylesheets referenced by a
> >>speech-synthesizing browser? The only implementer thus far (Opera)
> >>admits (after some ridiculous digging) that they don't support either[1].
> >
> >
> > There are pragmatic considerations here.  Most speech-synthesizing
> > browsers are designed to give the visually impaired user access to real
> > world web pages, so they only support visual media.
> 
> And I believe this is exactly the problem. There are a number of flaws 
> in this method, which should be readily apparent. What is not apparent, 
> however, is guidelines from the W3C for which medium they /ought/ to look.

We have a CSS3 Speech module[1] that is well advanced. The next draft
might well be the last call for comments and the CR is expected next
year.

While that module isn't in CR, we indeed have no official way to make
speech style sheets, except one that is deprecated, but the intention
is clear: we would like people to try out '@media speech' with the
properties in the Speech module and help us finish that module. In
particular, we need another implementation. It doesn't have to be a
browser. Something built on top of an SSML engine would do. Is anybody
working on a speech-enabled product?

'@media aural' remains valid for the few implementations that exist
(which are, as far as we know, either limited to two or three
properties or not publicly available).

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-speech



Bert
-- 
  Bert Bos                                ( W 3 C ) http://www.w3.org/
  http://www.w3.org/people/bos                               W3C/ERCIM
  bert@w3.org                             2004 Rt des Lucioles / BP 93
  +33 (0)4 92 38 76 92            06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex, France

Received on Thursday, 28 April 2005 21:01:55 UTC