Millions of children and adults worldwide live with voicelessness, and text to speech technology makes it possible for those who are nonverbal to use a device to express themselves. In recent years with the widespread adoption of mobile technology, more apps have emerged to assist with communication, but available voices are limited and often sound robotic.
We caught up with founder Dr. Rupal Patel, who created VocaliD to produce custom crafted voices so that those who are nonverbal have access to a unique voice. VocaliD uses proprietary voice blending technology to create a unique voice persona for any device that turns text into speech. We learned about 16 different voice types (from Candy to Bowtie to Crystal!) and had our voices assessed within a few seconds.
Learn how you can donate to the Human Voicebank, how to “bank†your own voice for the future and experiment with a simple to use text to speech app. VocaliD can use your speech recordings to create your personalized digital voice. Why would anyone want to do this? Think of it as insurance for a day when a voice is lost or unavailable due to an illness or injury.
Dr. Patel demonstrates two apps to BridgingApps co-founder Cristen Reat – one that assesses a person’s voice type from 16 types and a text to speech app available on iOS and Android platforms.