BrowseAloud and ReadSpeaker both use this approach pretty successfully. The difference in the two commercially is that with Browsealoud the end user pays for the licence to access sites which subscribe to the list of supported domains (as simple as agreeing to have your organisation listed on the products index), where as with Reaadspeaker the site hoste pays the licence to have the technology on their site and available to all visitors. Both are pretty common on public sector sites such as Government departments, local councils etc. Adrian Higginbotham Project manager: Learning services Becta Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Becta switchboard 02476-416994. Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/ BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ -----Original Message----- From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Isaac Porat Sent: 25 April 2008 20:52 To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bcab] Re: WebAnywhere: a free screen reader accessed via the Hello Si I don't think that converting to speech on the server is practical - not beyond a research project; the computation penalty would be too great when many users would use the site. If some of the text is pre converted the storage requirements would be enormous for each page. On your second point, regardless of how clever the web engineering is, whatever you do, connection is always unpredictable and many time slow due to bottlenecks between the server and the client - on a home connection anyway. I suspect (but don't know) that the SA to Go converts to speech using a local program downloaded to your computer which is I think a better approach. Regards Isaac -----Original Message----- From: bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bcab-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Simon HARPER Sent: 25 April 2008 16:02 To: bcab@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bcab] Re: WebAnywhere: a free screen reader accessed via the Hi Guys, So as far as I'm aware WebAnywhere is for use on machines - mainly public machines when there is no access to USB or CD for security purpose; and for situations such as kiosks etc. It works by generating Speech for an http session on the server side and encoding it as MP3 - then sends it to the client via JavaScript calls coded into the page by a proxy. It's some pretty cool Web Engineering especially because the latency is not noticeable as their encode and send algorithms are leading edge. Cheers Si. ==== Simon Harper University of Manchester (UK) Human Centred Web Lab: http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk My Site: http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/harper/ My Diary (iCal): http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/diaries/SimonHarper.ics +----------------------[ NEW & INTERESTING ]--------------------------------------+ W4A2008 Beijing . 21-22 Apr 2008 . http://www.w4a.info WWW2008 Beijing . 21-25 Apr 2008 . http://www.www2008.org Hypertext 2008 . 19-21 Jun 2008 . http://www.ht2008.org ASSETS 2008 . 13-15 Oct 2008 . http:// www.sigaccess.org/assets08 +----------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------+ On 25 Apr 2008, at 13:03, Michael Whapples wrote: > On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 02:03 -0400, BCAB_Digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: >> Subject: [bcab] Re: WebAnywhere: a free screen reader accessed via >> the >> web >> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:55:20 +0100 >> From: "Adrian Higginbotham" <adrian.higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx> >> >> SaToGo isn't open source no. >> NVDA is open source and while it isn't web based it is portable so >> can >> be run from a usb stick or CD so can easily auto start without any >> keyboard interaction at all. >> http://www.nvda-project.org/ > WebAnywhere is opensource as well, although the indications from > what I > have read is that it hasn't always. >> >> Would be nice if nvda and web anywhere worked together to save >> duplicating work. > Might be good, but that is one of the advantages of open source, they > don't need to actually work together, the other can always learn by > looking at the code and taking anything that looks good (I don't know > which open source license WebAnywhere is under, and it might make it > harder for the two to mix if it is GPL incompatible). This then means > that they may go slightly different ways, but not actually be creating > all the stuff themselves. Yes it is better if they work together to > help > understand what they are trying to do, but it isn't as necessary as it > might be for closed source software. >> >> >> Adrian Higginbotham >> Project manager: Learning services >> Becta >> Tel: Direct dial 024 7679 7333 - Becta switchboard 02476-416994. >> Email: Adrian.Higginbotham@xxxxxxxxxxxx >> Web: http://www.becta.org.uk/ >> BECTA, Millburn Hill Road, Science Park, Coventry, CV4 7JJ >> >> > > *** BCAB List administration *** > > If you wish to unsubscribe, set vacation,, request a digest or > carry out routine maintenance on your subscription to the list then > go to: > http://www.bcab.org.uk/mailing-list.html > > Alternatively, send an email to bcab-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the > word faqin the subject line. You'll receive an email with advice on > managing your subscription to the list. > > If you wish to discuss the administration of the list then contact: > bcab-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > *** BCAB List administration *** If you wish to unsubscribe, set vacation,, request a digest or carry out routine maintenance on your subscription to the list then go to: http://www.bcab.org.uk/mailing-list.html Alternatively, send an email to bcab-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word faqin the subject line. You'll receive an email with advice on managing your subscription to the list. If you wish to discuss the administration of the list then contact: bcab-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *** BCAB List administration *** If you wish to unsubscribe, set vacation,, request a digest or carry out routine maintenance on your subscription to the list then go to: http://www.bcab.org.uk/mailing-list.html Alternatively, send an email to bcab-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word faqin the subject line. You'll receive an email with advice on managing your subscription to the list. If you wish to discuss the administration of the list then contact: bcab-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx *** BCAB List administration *** If you wish to unsubscribe, set vacation,, request a digest or carry out routine maintenance on your subscription to the list then go to: http://www.bcab.org.uk/mailing-list.html Alternatively, send an email to bcab-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word faqin the subject line. You'll receive an email with advice on managing your subscription to the list. If you wish to discuss the administration of the list then contact: bcab-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx