‘Black Mirror’ is one of the best science fiction series that question reality. Due to its disturbing and somewhat pessimistic predictions about the future of humanity. As if we were in one of its episodes, the technology of Text-To-Speech surprises us more every day with its realism. Continue reading Text-To-Speech: A Technology That Looks As It Came From Black Mirror; we will tell you a little about this technology, its uses, and about Woord, one of the simplest, high-quality, and free options.
Amazon’s Alexa would allow you to hear a dead family member again
Surely you have already heard that Amazon revealed that it is developing technology for its Alexa voice assistant to imitate the voice of a deceased person. To achieve this, the system will only need less than a minute of recorded audio where the person is heard when he was still alive.
The proposal was highly controversial and brought much criticism. The truth is that there are very interesting philosophical points on the matter. There are many Internet users who highlighted the problematic relationship we have as a culture with death.
However, philosophy and controversy aside, Text-To-Speech technology is a fundamental tool today. For example, did you know that this is the tool that allowed Stephen Hawking to communicate for so many years despite his struggle with ALS?
The ‘Black Mirror’ episode that ‘predicted’ this
As Amazon’s senior vice president of AI said, Alexa’s new feature is very close to science fiction. Following the tech company’s announcement, some social media users compared the news to an episode of ‘Black Mirror’.
In the first chapter of the second season, entitled ‘Be Right Back’, it is shown how a girl is unable to overcome the death of her partner. He had died in a car accident.
In order to remember him, the protagonist decides to hire an application that creates special avatars. This become more realistic the more information the person receives, such as their fingerprints or the emails they sent and received.
The purpose of that episode is to show how technology could change the way people grieve over the death of a loved one, which is very different from the goal of Alexa’s new feature, which is to “preserve the memory” of a deceased person.
Text-To-Speech: More Than A Tool From Black Mirror
Speech synthesis is the process by which a machine generates voice or simulates human speech. Starting from a text, through the use of engineering processes and the study of phonetics and linguistic theory, this is possible. In other words, it is the artificial production of voice by the machine, without these being pre-recorded.
This kind of software is extremely useful for those who perform many tasks simultaneously; have tired eyes, or simply need to optimize their reading. However, there is an even more important aspect of this type of technology: inclusion. Our culture focuses mostly on sight and speech to communicate; the truth is that many people are systematically excluded because of this. In this sense, Text-To-Speech tools play a much more relevant role than comfort or efficiency: they are tools for inclusion and equality.
Woord: An Excellent Text-To-Speech Option
As we have already said, anyone can benefit from a text readersoftware as they are extremely versatile. However, here we suggest that you begin to see it as a tool to work with others. If you are a teacher, this tool can be of great help for visually impaired students; or if you have a website for your business, providing audio options for your customers is a great option. Inclusion is everyone’s job! For this reason, we recommend Woord, an extremely intuitive TTS software with high-quality results.
Woord is a free online text-to-speech (TTS) program with a lot of excellent features. It offers more than 50 languages and dialects; as well as the ability to pick between masculine, feminine, or non-binary voices. All of these options are free to use, allowing you to evaluate the service before investing in the premium version. The free pack includes premium voices, a Chrome plugin, an SSML editor, an MP3 download, and up to 20,000 characters per month. You can also change the voice’s pace and format with this application.
Also published on Medium.