In my last blog post I mentioned Amazon's new electronic book (the Kindle), and how it's helping lead the tranformation from paper to electronic documents.  The other interesting development coming out of the Kindle is its computer-generated voice; and it's a decent one at that (listen here for a sample reading on YouTube).

Computer-generated voices are getting better and the overall acceptance of these voices are also improving.  Phone systems were the first to use this technology, but they're now used in GPS navigation systems, electronic books, and even online safety training.

As you may or may not know, the 130+ safety training lessons available on the SAFETYSYNC online Safety Management System all feature computer-generated voices.  Reaction to our training lessons is mixed.  There are users that are surprized to find out it's not a real person narrating the lesson, others are aware that the narration is computer-generated, but are unoffended by it, and there are some that have a hard time with it.  Fortunately the last group is in the minority, and when we check the feedback scores on these lessons, they are very high.

I must admit that the voices we use are highly advanced.  The method we use is called concatenative speech synthesis, and it is now the dominant format for computerized speech.  As text-to-speech technology improves, we will update our lessons.  Some day, our users may not even notice the difference.

Text-to-speech allows us to develop courses quickly, which leads to lower cost to our customers, and a more complete course selection.  Check out our sample lesson and quiz, and post a comment to let us know what you think!