Creating Speaking Web Pages: The Text-to-Speech Integrated Development Environment (TTS-IDE) David C. Gibbs Department of Mathematics and Computing University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Stevens Point, WI

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France2 Introduction University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point (USA) Department of Mathematics and Computing Web Speech Research Group Undergraduate Computing students

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France3 This Presentation What motivated development of the TTS-IDE? What? Browsers speak? Which browsers? How do browsers speak? How do I create a speaking presentation?

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France4 The Motivation Online Course in JavaScript programming : Spring 2004 Multiple learning styles, as applied to online instruction Text presentation Online discussion Graphics Audio

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France5 The Motivation, cont’d. First three are “easy” (text, discussion, graphics) Audio delivery (then) was problematic PowerPoint, saved as HTML large files – inaccessible to dial-up users Clumsy to edit, maintain

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France6 The Motivation, cont’d. Difficulties with audio Recording file size 0.5 MB/minute Cannot easily edit the text Updating presentations essential in technology disciplines

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France7 A timely coincidence? Opera introduced “speaking browser” – March 2004 Investigated Text-To-Speech (TTS)

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France8 A Possible Solution Speech Synthesis “The process of automatic generation of speech output from data input which may include plain text, marked up text or binary objects.” (w3.org, 2004) For this paper, speech synthesis within a web browser

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France9 Competing Technologies Two HTML-like markup languages Microsoft SALT Speech Application Language Tags VoiceXML from W3C

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France10 Microsoft SALT: Speech Application Language Tags Uses O.S. “default voice” XP ships with Microsoft Mary, Mike, Sam, LH Michael and Michelle Purchase voices: NeoSpeech Kate and Paul ($30 US street price) DEMONSTRATION – speech properties dialog (control panel) Browser use requires download voice add-in for I.E. (65MB)

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France11 VoiceXML Opera Browser (v8 and beyond) Partnered with IBM ViaVoice Download Opera – follow Voice instructions DEMONSTRATION Speak the text on any page – select text and right-click | “Speak”

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France12 Code Samples Hello World: html doc Hello World Hello World! 7 8

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France13 Code Samples Hello World: SALT doc (p. 1 of 2) HelloWorld

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France14 Code Samples Hello World: SALT doc (p. 2 of 2) Hello World 4 5 Hello World! 6 7 SALT-HelloWorld.htm

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France15 Code Samples Hello World: VoiceXML doc (p. 1 of 2) Hello World Hello World! 8 9 1

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France16 Code Samples Hello World: VoiceXML doc (p. 2 of 2) 1 2 Hello World! 3 4 OPERA-HelloWorld.xml (open the Opera browser)

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France17 Text-to-Speech IDE

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France18 What does the IDE do? (SALT) Modifies existing page by adding the necessary tags Creates the salt namespace Adds SALT Add-in Adds namespace Adds SALT prompt tags around “notes”

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France19 Preparatory tasks (I.E.) Download and install the Internet Explorer Speech Add-in Download the TTS-IDE

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France20 Creating an “Online Lecture” Run the TTS-IDE Add the text to be spoken Convert the page to use TTS Example: my home pagemy home page

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France21 Creating an “Online Lecture”: from PowerPoint slides 1. Open the PPT presentation in PowerPoint 2. Then save the PowerPoint file as a Web page (File | Save as Web Page). 3. From the TTS-IDE, open the.htm file.

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France22 Creating an “Online Lecture” 4. Add the text to be spoken to each page. 5. Convert the page. 6. Test the pages. 7. Copy the pages to the course website or CD.

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France23 Demonstration Example file: E:\WBE2007-SpeakingBrowserPPT.ppt

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France24 Further Work on TTS-IDE Speech Recognition For basic navigation “Next Page” “Previous Page” “Links” Custom Voices FestVox, Carnegie Mellon Additional Language Support Client browser, speech engine

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France25 Further Work Speech Recognition Speaking and Listening Browser Hands-free browsing (via speech recognition) RSS news feeds, by topic

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France26 Conclusion – TTS-IDE Add text to create speaking online “lectures.” Can use HTML or PPT – saved as web Can create for Internet Explorer (SALT) or Opera (VoiceXML)

WBE 2007 March 16, 2007 Chamonix, France27 Contact Information This presentation and download of IDE (available 2007/03/26)