25/02/2013 - CereProc partners with Dedicon to introduce Dutch language TTS voice
One of CereProc's core missions - through commercial and academic partnership, intensive research and development of our patented technologies - is to enable individuals from around the world to apply text to speech solutions in their own language to enhance everyday life. With this in mind, we're delighted to announce that the next language to receive the 'CereProc treatment' is....Dutch!
With a line up of synthetic voices in multiple languages that includes English (with accents from Scotland, Republic of Ireland, United States of America, Northern England, Southern England and the Midlands), Spanish, Catalan, German, French, Austrian, and Italian, our range of artificial voices available for commercial application is comprehensive and ever growing.
Witnessing the effective use of our TTS systems across healthcare, education, entertainment, robotics, business and logistics industries throughout Europe and beyond, our team turned its attention toward the Netherlands, applying our advanced technology to create a Dutch language synthetic TTS voice named Anne.
Working alongside a great team from leading accessibility organisation Dedicon, the text-to-speech system for Dutch language support was developed using our core synthesis engine, CereVoice. The resulting TTS voice - available for download and deployment across multiple platforms using mobile channels, Windows, Mac OS X, CereVoice Cloud, SDK or cServer products - offers users an artificial voice that displays character and emotion while encapsulating the all-important native Dutch accent.
The newly launched Dutch language artificial text to speech voice is commercially available to developers or individuals seeking to integrate our patented voice creation technology that delivers high quality synthetic voices that retain the character and sentiment of the voice artist with specific regional accent.
Completely language independent, CereVoice continues to be used by the team to develop the diverse range of TTS voices supporting different languages and accents. As with our entire product range, the the Dutch Anne synthetic voice is 22khz for excellent clarity and naturalness, is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, and compatible with screen readers and many other widely used applications.
Reaffirming our commitment - as laid out a couple of weeks ago with regard to UK public services and resource - to improving accessibility to materials and resources for every individual using our global leading technology, our partnership with Dedicon has proved highly valuable in driving forward improved accessibility for a new audience in an important area of Europe that CereProc had previously left unexplored.
An organisation that produces accessible versions of materials including books, maps, magazines, and exam papers in audio formats, large print, and braille to support disabled individuals and enhance user experience, Dedicon applied its local knowledge, wealth of experience and expertise to the successful completion of this project and the resulting product is the culmination of our joint efforts.
Paul Welham, CEO at CereProc commented: "Pursuing the objective of enabling users across the globe to engage with text to speech systems in their own language is of great importance to us. Opening up new markets to us while supporting those in need of assistive TTS whose native language is Dutch, I'm certain that developing our Anne voice is a crucial step in CereProc's growth strategy, and we're looking forward to the coming months' operations with our increased European language repository."
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