Text-to-Speech (TTS) is a software which renders the machine readable text into Human Voice. The TTS software allows people with visual impairments or reading disabilities to listen to written works on a computer or a mobile device. Text to Speech system when integrated with screen reader would enable visually challenged users to interpret and perform computer operations with audio interface. Thus TTS system integrated with screen reader would be a potential assistive technology which will help visually challenged section and learning disabled section of the society to use the benefits of ICT and knowledge sharing. Under the consortium Mode project with leadership from IIT Madras and other consortia members are : IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Kharagpur, IISc Bangalore, IIT Guwahati, IIT Mandi, CDAC Mumbai, CDAC Thiruvananthapuram, CDAC Kolkata, SSNCE Chennai, DA-IICT Gujarat and PESIT Bangalore, funded by TDIL Programme , Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Govt. of India. Text to Speech for 13 Indian Languages namely Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati, Odia, Assamese, Manipuri, Kannada, Bodo and Rajasthani have been developed using the both Open Source FESTIVOX Framework and State-of-the art HTS based engine.
Application development under TTS Project: