<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Something your friend might want to look at is Cepstral's voices. Try them out on their demos page <A href="http://www.cepstral.com/demos/">http://www.cepstral.com/demos/</A> <DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The David and Diane voices are excellent. So is William. Most of the rest are MUCH better than the ones Apple ships. They also have ones for foreign languages, too.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><DIV>They've also got a few specialty voices. I bought the one with a Scottish accent ("Duncan") because after all, a computer named "Mac" is Scottish, right? I suppose I should've bought "William", though...</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV> - Bill</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Aug 9, 2006, at 2:41 PM, Matthew W. wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">Hello all,<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Regarding the WWDC keynote VoiceOver Text-to-speech improvements...<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Last year, a blind friend of mine, frustrated with Windows and the high price of screen-reading software, switched over to the Mac in a big way. He bought 3 of them and has had very positive comments. He just sent me his opinion of Leopard's updated VoiceOver. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV>The Vista voice is nothing new, but rather a replay of the old. Microsoft Mike is better, but yet not as good as the new MAC voice. The new MAC voice speaks the words very clearly and speaks them in a natcheral (sic) way, the best computer generated voice I have ever heard.</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><DIV>BTW, if you haven't seen the WWDC keynote, catch it here:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><<A href="http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html">http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/aug_2006/event/index.html</A>></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>It's about 1h 30m long, so sit in a comfy chair.</DIV></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Matthew Wheeler</DIV><DIV>Acting Vice President</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Des Moines Macintosh Users Group</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.dmmug.org">http://www.dmmug.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dmmug mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Use this Address to send mail to the list:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:Dmmug@dmmug.org">Dmmug@dmmug.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Use this page to modify subscription options:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/dmmug">http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/dmmug</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>