[dot] KDE 3.4 Will Talk to You

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1103518176/

From: Olaf Schmidt <ojschmidt at kde.org>
Dept: gossipers-babblers-and-speechifiers
Date: Monday 20/Dec/2004, @05:49

KDE 3.4 Will Talk to You
========================

   The KDE Accessibility team is in the process of integrating speech
synthesis into KDE.  Not only does this mean better support for
visually-impaired and speech-impaired users, but the new features should
also prove for a fun desktop experience overall. An important milestone
has been reached with the recent release of the KDE Text-to-Speech
System (ktts) [http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/]. If you
wish to learn more about speech synthesis support in KDE, you can also
read an extensive interview with four developers
[http://accessibility.kde.org/about/ttsteam.php] at the KDE
Accessibility Website.
 [http://accessibility.kde.org/]
     Both ktts and KSayIt (an application to read out longer texts) will
be included in KDE 3.4. They are important additions to KMouth (an
application for speech impaired people) and the other two assistive
technologies in KDE, KMouseTool and KMagnifier.

     The interview is part of a planned series of interviews with
participants of the KDE Accessibility Project. Future interviews will
cover other areas of accessibility in KDE:

    * improved support for partially sighted people in KDE 3.4
    * support for blind users in KDE 4.0
    * foundation of the freedesktop.org accessibility initiative to find
      a consensus on a common speech driver API
    * close cooperation with the GNOME Accessibility Project to ensure
      that all assistive technologies will integrate into each desktop
      without problems
    * invitation of other accessibility projects to the last KDE
      conference, and participation in the FSG Accessibility Workgroup