Hi Edward,<br><br>This is precisely one of the many applications that I envision for such an activity--reading narrative works to preliterate children in a natural-sounding voice that is familiar to them. At the same time, it would be pretty challenging to truly replicate the human voice, both from a software and hardware perspective, though of course that is a very important, albeit ambitious goal of speech synthesis in general.<br>
<br>Thanks for your support!<br><br>Best,<br>Alex<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Apr 5, 2008 at 4:09 AM, Edward Cherlin <<a href="mailto:echerlin@gmail.com" target="_blank">echerlin@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
2008/4/4 Alex Escalona <<a href="mailto:aescalona@gmail.com" target="_blank">aescalona@gmail.com</a>>:<br>
<div><div></div><div>> Hi Everyone,<br>
><br>
> I just created a page on the OLPC wiki detailing my activity proposal--"Your<br>
> voice on XO". I hope to develop this activity via GSoC 2008. A brief<br>
> abstract of my proposal follows.<br>
><br>
> This is a proposal for the creation of a new activity for the XO that would<br>
> advance localization efforts in TTS development, as well as promote the<br>
> involvement of the local community overall. "Your voice on XO" would consist<br>
> of a long-term, community-based project to build and/or further development<br>
> of a synthetic voice for the language used locally (for more on<br>
> synthetic-voice building, see <a href="http://www.festvox.org/bsv/p710.html" target="_blank">http://www.festvox.org/bsv/p710.html</a>, and<br>
> <a href="http://espeak.sourceforge.net/add_language.html" target="_blank">http://espeak.sourceforge.net/add_language.html</a>).<br>
><br>
> This activity would entail integrating the voice-building capabilities of<br>
> eSpeak, or perhaps Festival, into Sugar on the XO, as well as working to<br>
> facilitate synthetic-voice building in a classroom, or community setting<br>
> (for an overall view of how the voice building process might proceed, see<br>
> <a href="http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/emasters/summer_school_2005/tutorial3/tutorial.html" target="_blank">http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/emasters/summer_school_2005/tutorial3/tutorial.html</a>).<br>
><br>
> Your feedback and comments are much appreciated!<br>
<br>
</div></div>Let's get the voices of mothers and fathers, and grandmothers and<br>
grandfathers, too. On general principles, and for reading to<br>
preliterate children.<br>
<div><br>
> Best,<br>
><br>
> Alex Escalona<br>
> ("vergueishon" on OLPC wiki, IRC)<br>
><br>
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><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div></div><font color="#888888">--<br>
Edward Cherlin<br>
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business<br>
<a href="http://www.EarthTreasury.org/" target="_blank">http://www.EarthTreasury.org/</a><br>
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br>