[access-uk] The Blizard Challenge 2008
- From: "Peter Beasley" <pjbeasley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 16:48:05 +0100
I am sure some of you will find the article below of interest. I wonder
though, why they are afraid to use the word blind and prefer partialy sighted.
The Blizzard Challenge 2008
Author: Gareth Halfacree
Published: 16th May 2008
Caption: The entrants in the Blizzard Challenge have all finished their engines,
so it's up to us to
decide if they've succeeded.
If you're interested in helping advance the science of text-to-speech synthesis,
you're needed as
part of the Blizzard Challenge. The Challenge is an annual event hosted by the
University
of
Edinburgh's Centre for Speech Technology Research in which programmers are given
10,000
sentence-length recordings of a person from which they must create a working
speech
synthesis
engine. Once each team has completed their engine, the results are uploaded for
people
like us to
listen to and rate.
Speech synthesis is an important technology, and one which gets criminally
overlooked
in these days
of multi-gigabyte storage and the ability to record voiceover artists in
high-fidelity.
Not only are
the text-to-speech engines vital for partially sighted people using
screen-reader
software that all
too often sounds like a cross between Stephen Hawking and a Dalek, but an engine
which is as
flexible as a real human voice holds the promise of massively improved immersion
in games with vast
swathes of text being transformed into realistic speech without the need to hire
actors and
expensive studios.
In order to make things easier for the teams involved, the Blizzard Challenge
has
traditionally used
a neutral voice for the basis of the engines - one without a particularly strong
accent and as
emotion free as possible. This time round, however, the Challenge is to create a
working engine from
a voice sample which has a lot more personality than usual. While this makes
things
a lot harder for
the programmers, it holds the promise of an engine capable of producing a voice
that
doesn't sound
permanently bored.
If your last experience of text-to-voice synthesis was with the Say program on
your
Amiga 500
Workbench floppy, then you'll be pleasantly surprised by how advanced some of
this
years entries
are. If you want to participate, you can sign up on the project homepage. It'll
only
take about an
hour of your time, and it's well worth it.
Do we have any partially sighted visitors relying on screen readers, or are we
all
just looking
forward to seeing the technology to a point where it can be used to put more
speech
into games like
Oblivion? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
LINK: Blizzard Challenge 2008 Volunteer Listener Registration
http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/blizzard/blizzard2008/english/register-ER.html
SOURCE URL FOR THIS ARTICLE
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/16/the-blizzard-challenge-2008/1
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