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Web Browsers and Text-to-Speech Solutions?
JZ_o8 asks: "I work for an online education company that needs to be able to accommodate students who, in some cases, are several grades behind in their reading level. We are investigating screen reading technologies that might serve as a supplement for these students. We have considered technologies such as AT&T Natural Voices Text-to-Speech Engine but the process is time-intensive and cumbersome. Development requires a desktop application which encodes text into a web audio format such as MP3. This of course raises issues about page updates and dynamic content which would render any accompanying speech files, obsolete. It seems like the best solution would be browser support, perhaps via a plug-in, that would give the user Text to Speech capabilities. Something like selecting a passage of text with the mouse and right-click to select 'Speak'. Or maybe a server-side solution that would dynamically generate media files for pages on the fly? Or just when they're changed? Does anyone have any suggestions - solutions that I am overlooking. This seems like a useful and logical piece of technology....if it doesn't exist I wonder why not."
Access Mozilla should be a good starting point...even better is that ViaVoice is free for the disabled...
Blind Linux is also a good start...
As a side note, if these students are not disabled, then it might be better to use a browser to teach them to read rather than have it read for them...
the Human Computer Interaction Lab at the U of Maryland might be a place to look. I don't know that they have exactly what you are looking for, but the are spending a bit of effort working on interfaces specifically for learning and special access needs and they are designed with commercialization of their products in mind.
I just selected your article contents in my web browser (happens to be Safari, but this works in any browser) Then I chose the menu item Safari->Services->Speech->Start Speaking Text
Even better, you can enable os X to speak the selected text via a user-defined keystroke, or even all the text underneath the cursor. (in the Speech Preference Panel)
If you're using windows though, I dunno..
"What thou shalt not, I shalt did!" -Bart Simpson
A couple products immediately come to mind; excuse the debian-isms:
Konqueror is certainly easier (for me) to get running, YMMV.
ID-10-T is a way of life