 | You should see a similar animated character (like the one to the left) that is talking to you VIA a balloon for text and talking to you in a computer synthesized voice through your computer speakers. |
| You should see a similar animated character (like the one to the left) that is talking to you VIA a balloon for text and talking to you in a computer synthesized voice through your computer speakers. |
www.SirSeek.com is an excellent example of an online website (smart search engine) that implements this MSAgent technology (text-to-speech, voice synthesis) during searching (sample HERE), reading details of a site (example HERE) and best of all, the dictionary lookup allows you to have words phonically sounded (sample HERE, use the audio links after definition) out aloud.
These type of speech synthesis computer tools can assist with/to: handicapped, dyslexic, learning English as a second language, seeing impaired, and others...
Sample Text-To-Speech Web-Based Applications:
It can be a bit tedious to get this text to speech (read aloud speech synthesis) feature to work with possibly 3 installs of drivers (one for the character, one for speech synthesis and possibly one more if you are using Windows XP). All drivers are downloaded from Microsoft and are certified safe.
| SYSTEM | Installer #1 | Installer #2 | Installer #3 |
| Windows 95/98 using Explorer |  | Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine | None |
| Windows 2000 Using Explorer | | Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine | None |
| Windows ME Using Explorer | | Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine | None |
| Windows XP Using Explorer | | Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine | If you are using Windows XP, then you will need this file too |
| Windows Using Netscape |  | Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine | If you are using Windows XP, then you will need this file too. |
| MAC | ? | ? | ? |
| UNIX/LINUX | ? | ? | ? |
| OS2/SUN | ? | ? | ? |
If Merlin doesn't respond (photo of Merlin below in table), here are some troubleshooting hints or goto Microsoft's Agent Homepage.
This sample (sample is already on the page, reload page to retry Merlin Character by pressing the F5 key) loads its character from an HTTP URL, so you must be connected to the WWW and be able to reach the server at http://agent.microsoft.com, or the Talking Search Engine will not work properly.
If you have never installed the Lernout & Hauspie TTS Engine, you will be prompted to install it. Without the TTS Engine, characters will not produce speech output. If you have never installed the Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine, you will hopefully be prompted to do so. Characters will not be able to recognize spoken commands without the SR Engine. Free Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice Text-to-Speech Engine (required for speech feature).
Free Microsoft Agent Software (required for animation feature). Note: You do not need to install this if you are using Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Me operating systems.