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Check back here often to find
out what is new with the NextUp.com site, TextAloud and our other products, as
well as new voice offerings.
12/12/08
NextUp.com Gift Cards now available
Give the gift of Speech
with new NextUp.com Gift Cards
http://www.nextup.com/giftcard.html
12/1/08
Updated Newsletter Archive
We've been a little slack
about updating the Newsletter archive, but now there is a link to the
new archive.
http://www.nextup.com/mailinglist.html
5/6/08
TextAloud toolbar for FireFox 3 Released
The latest version of
TextAloud now includes FireFox toolbar/extension for FireFox version 3.
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
3/1/08
TextAloud with iTunes/iPod/iPhone integration
We've done an upgrade of
TextAloud to include iTunes integration, allowing TextAloud to
automatically add TextAloud created audio files to a playlist in iTunes,
making it easy to sync to mp3 players.
http://www.nextup.com/itunes.html
2/28/08
GhostReader for Mac now available
We are happy to announce
we are now offering ConvienceWare's GhostReader for Mac. Like
TextAloud, this product allows you to take any text and create audio
files for easy portable listening. It is available with high
quality Acapela Voices.
http://www.nextup.com/mac.html
2/27/08
InfoVox Desktop Pro from Acapela now available
While we've offered
Acapela
voice for TextAloud for a long time, we often get requests for open,
SAPI compatible versions of these voice that will work with any program.
We now have these available, and are the sole US distributor of InfoVox
Desktop Pro.
http://www.nextup.com/infovox.html
2/9/08
13 New TextAloud Voices from Acapela
We are proud to offer 13
new voices from Acapela Group, including new High Quality voice in
German, British, French, Canadian French, and others. New
supported languages include European Portuguese, Mexican Spanish,
Danish, Czech, Faroese, Icelandic, Finnish, and Turkish
http://nextup.com/acapela.html
1/31/08
Cancer
Survivor Overcomes Voice Loss with NextUp Talker
In April of 2007, husband
and wife Chuck and May Rone received the difficult news that May had
cancer -- and that the treatment would necessitate the loss of her
tongue and voice box to surgery...
http://www.nextup.com/press/013108.html
1/1/08
TextAloud Brings Faith to Life for Listeners
The greatest power of
Text to Speech lies in its ability to bring written words into sound -
to entertain, educate, or, as is the case with many users, even to
reconnect the listener with his or her faith. When a printed word
becomes a spoken one, reading is no longer confined to a chair, but
opened up to the world. Through Text to Speech and programs like
TextAloud from NextUp Technologies (http://www.Nextup.com), the Bible,
Scriptures or other religious works can now be enjoyed anywhere,
bringing comfort and inspiration wherever the listener goes.
http://www.nextup.com/press/011608.html
10/31/07
Using Foreign Voices with English text to get unique Accents
We did an experiment to see how voices designed for
non-English languages would do with English text, and got some
surprising results.
http://www.nextup.com/accents.html
10/23/07
PR: TextAloud Helps Pilot to Soar in Studies
As a United States Air
Force pilot, Tom Schwarzkopf balances a busy schedule between flying,
teaching, and family, a demanding enough task on its own. But until
recently, Tom also had to fit learning and memorization time into the
mix, during his study of advanced military doctrine at Air Command and
Staff College. Luckily, he discovered Text to Speech software TextAloud
from NextUp Technologies (http://www.Nextup.com), and the program was
such an efficient tool that he directly credits TextAloud as the reason
he was able to finish eighteen months of advanced military studies in
just nine. Affordably priced at just $29.95, TextAloud is a Text to
Speech program that installs in seconds, and converts text into spoken
audio files for listening on a PC, Laptop, or MP3 player or other
portable device. "The amount of retention I gained, as well as the
amount of time I saved overall," Tom comments, "was unbelievable."
http://www.nextup.com/press/102307.html
10/9/07
PR: Popular Novelist finds romance in Text To Speech
California native Carolyn
Jewel is the successful author of such historical and paranormal romance
titles as Shards of Crimson, A Darker Crimson, The Spare, Lord Ruin, and
Magellan's Witch (upcoming in 2008 from Grand Central Publishing). She
is also a fan of Text to Speech, and chooses the TextAloud program near
the end of the writing process as one of her most important proofing
tools. Easy, affordable, and a breeze to use, TextAloud is a Text to
Speech program from NextUp Technologies (http://www.NextUp.com) that
converts text into spoken audio files for listening on a PC (or a wide
variety of popular portable devices)
http://www.nextup.com/press/100907.html
9/18/07
PR: TextAloud helps Scrabble Champion spell Victory
David S. is a retired
U.K. computer programmer and successful tournament Scrabble™ player who
has recently discovered Text to Speech program TextAloud as one of the
secrets to his success. An easy and budget-friendly software program
from NextUp Technologies (www.NextUp.com), TextAloud converts text into
spoken audio files for listening on a PC or portable device. The program
has proven popular with a rich and varied assortment of users worldwide
- users like David, who found their own unique value in the program.
http://www.nextup.com/press/091807.html
8/30/07
PR: Denver Professional hears books and more with TextAloud and
BookShare.org
For individuals like
Julie, Bookshare.org is the perfect complement to TextAloud. Bookshare
is an online community that dramatically increases access to books for
individuals who are visually impaired and otherwise print-disabled,
enabling the legitimate and legal sharing of book scans contributed by
Bookshare members as well as directly from publishers. TextAloud Text to
Speech software works seamlessly with this resource, as it enables
Bookshare members to then export those books to audio files that can be
played on anything from computers to iPods® and other portables. The
text read aloud via TextAloud offers high-quality, realistic and
human-sounding voices which are a far cry from the less naturalistic,
more 'robotic-sounding' voices of decades past.
http://www.nextup.com/press/083007.html
8/23/07
Latest NextUp.com Newsletter
TextAloud Advanced FAQ,
Voice Sale, Acoustica Products
http://www.texttospeechblog.com/2007/08/latest-nextupcom-newsletter.html
8/22/07
New Article Updates
Updated our Press
Articles page to include new stories and mentions about TextAloud and
its many uses at
http://www.nextup.com/press/articles.html
8/16/07
PR: Exec Listens his way to PHD
As a Vice President with
a top national brokerage firm, New Jersey business executive Anthony
Scriffignano had already discovered the usefulness of TextAloud, a
simple and elegant Text to Speech software that converts text into
spoken audio, to listen to his reading on his commutes. However, he
began to use the software in earnest to support the huge amount of
reading required when he started to pursue his Ph.D - and it was here
that TextAloud became truly indispensable.
http://www.nextup.com/press/081607.html
8/03/07
PR: NovelMaker.com Recommends TextAloud
TextAloud offers enormous
assistance in the writing process by catching errors more conventional
tools like spell-checkers may miss," comments Chris Olander, President
and CEO of NovelMaker.com. "It also offers a great deal of creative
potential, for use in testing dialogue or even characterization.
TextAloud ultimately offers a multitude of fascinating uses sure to be
helpful to writers who take part in the NovelMaker community
http://www.nextup.com/press/080307.html
7/24/07
Spell Checker added to NextUp Talker
The latest version of
NextUp Talker, our product for those who can no longer speak, includes a
spell checker. Options->Spell Checker gives you settings for this
new feature.
http://www.talkforme.com/downloads.html
7/19/07
Press Release: TextAloud and iPhone
With the recent release
of the next generation of portables like Apple's enormously popular
iPhone (TM), there's never been a better time for people to discover the
power of Text to Speech products like NextUp.com's software TextAloud.
http://www.nextup.com/press/071207.html
7/18/07
New Partner Products from Acoustica
We've launched some new
partner products including Audio Editing and Mixing, CD Burning, and
CD/DVD Label Making
http://www.nextup.com/acoustica.html
5/25/07
NewsAloud 1.30 Released for Vista
NewsAloud has been
updated to be completely compatible with Windows Vista. You can
download the latest version at
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/download.html
5/20/07
TextAloud 2.246 Update
We are constantly
updating TextAloud. You can always download the latest verson of
TextAloud at
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
and the ReleaseNotes,
showing what has changed are also linked to on that page.
5/19/07
Update on NextUp.com Newsletters
We haven't been real
regular about sending out Newsletters so far this year. As in past
years, our goal is to send out Newsletters once a month. Between
lots of development work and helping a lot of customers, we just haven't
kept up a good schedule. We hope to get back to that soon.
We've are also making a change from using Microsoft's ListBuilder
service to do the subscription and mailings, to a new company,
ConstantContact. We'll send out one last newsletter soon through
ListBuilder, and in it we'll also let you know details on how to make
sure our newsletters make it through your spam filters after our change
to the new service.
3/14/07
WeatherAloud 1.82 Released
WeatherAloud version 1.82
now available. This version makes WeatherAloud completely Vista
Ready and also fixes a bug where the program would forget its
registration code.
http://www.nextup.com/WeatherAloud/download.html
2/22/07
Launched new TTS Related Blog
Half marketing, half
news, read more at
http://nextuptts.blogspot.com/
2/20/07
Four new RealSpeak Voices, including Greek
We are pleased to
announce 4 additional Nuance RealSpeak voices are now available,
including Alexandros, our first Greek voice.
Purchase is via
http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html
2/15/07
TextAloud a Vital Resource for Those
with Aging Parents
TextAloud most recently
proved its usefulness to Warren Scharbert and his father, Don Scharbert
of Joliet, Illinois. Don Scharbert is an active and knowledgeable
longtime computer user with macular degeneration in one eye and a
detached retina in the other. This leaves him with limited vision, and
with screen magnifiers and other tools an increasingly necessary,
frustrating part of life -- pages that might take seconds or minutes for
sighted viewers, may take Don hours to read by magnifier. His son sought
a better solution for him -- and found TextAloud, which not only
integrated flawlessly with his father's existing PC programs, but
quickly proved itself to be an invaluable support for Don's love of
computing, bringing the web, e-mail, and more into spoken audio.
http://www.nextup.com/press/021507.html
2/7/07
Acclaimed Musician Joey Stuckey
Chooses TextAloud to Read, Work, Produce, and More
One of the most popular
products in the NextUp.com software line, TextAloud continues to find
rapidly growing popularity among the blind and visually impaired for its
ease of use and superb voice quality. Most recently, famed blind
musician, producer, and radio personality Joey Stuckey has discovered
TextAloud, and is now an official and enthusiastic endorser.
http://www.nextup.com/press/013107.html
2/5/07
TextAloud Supports Windows Vista
Version 2.228 has been
released which has full Windows Vista Support
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
2/5/07
NextUp Talker Updated to support Windows Vista
Version 1.012 of NextUp
Talker has been released with full support for Windows Vista
http://www.talkforme.com
1/23/07
ReadPal Reading Assistant
New affiliate partner
ReadPal. Great little product that helps you read faster, with
less eye strain, and with better comprehension. More details at
http://nextup.com/readpal.html
1/16/07
Cepstral Callie Download Available
Callie is Cepstral's
newest and best sounding US English Voice. We are happy to finally
make a demo version of the voice available for download. The voice
is fully functional and works great in TextAloud. Download and
install here today.
Download Callie
11/7/06
Three New Nuance RealSpeak English Voices
We are happy to announce
availability of 3 new Nuance RealSpeak voices for TextAloud. They
are US English Tom and Jill, and British English Emily. Samples
and purchase at
http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html
11/1/06
Added FireFox 2.0 Support to TextAloud
Version 2.218 of
TextAloud released to add support for FireFox 2.0 toolbar/plugin.
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
10/3/06
NextUp User Forums are 3 years old
While we've been around
for many years, our online user forums are celebrating their 3rd
anniversary. Thanks to all of our customers who have become
friends by helping us and others in the forum. You are the
smartest group of users around. If you haven't checked out our
forums yet, it is worth a visit at
http://nextup.com/phpBB2/index.php
9/1/06
New WeatherAloud available
Version 1.62 of
WeatherAloud adds support for Acapela voices and fixes problem with
program forgetting registration codes
http://nextup.com/WeatherAloud/download.html
8/26/06
NewsAloud version 1.09 available
Adds support for Acapela
voices, several misc. bug fixes.
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/download.html
8/11/06
Acapela Voices now available through European Reseller
For those in Europe
buying through methods other than credit card, ShareIT, our European
ecommerce company handles many European payment methods better than US
companies. Acapela voices are now available there via
http://www.nextup.com/acapela.html
8/1/06
TextAloud Update for Frames Support in Internet Explorer
Version 2.194 of
TextAloud available with improved Internet Explorer Toolbar. Adds
support for web sites with frames
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
7/27/06
PR: Lawyers find Technology helps with Reading Load
TextAloud Proves to be an
Industry Asset for Legal Pros
http://www.nextup.com/press/072706.html
7/26/06
NextUp.com Newsletter #56 Available
Acapela Voices and
TextAloud enhancement ideas
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter56.html
6/16/06
AT&T Natural Voices available for Mac
We've launched a new
simple TTS program with AT&T Natural Voices for Mac OS X. Now
available at
http://www.ablereader.com
6/12/06
Exciting new voices for TextAloud from Acapela Group
We are happy to announce
availability of some fantastic new voices for TextAloud from new
partners, Acapela Group. 20 new voices in 10 adds new natural
sounding possibilities to your TextAloud use.
http://nextup.com/acapela.html
6/09/06
Added New Pages for ordering methods other than online
If you'd like to order
NextUp products via methods other than credit card online, we've added
the following pages:
PayPal
http://www.nextup.com/paypalorder.html
Credit Card over the
Phone
http://www.nextup.com/phoneorder.html
Check or Money Order
http://www.nextup.com/mailorder.html
5/30/06
Press Release: Talking Software Speaks for the
Voiceless
The loss of one's voice
can be devastating. Instead of the natural ease of speech, communication
becomes a newly awkward, often time-consuming process, with signs or
hand signals, or a painstaking scribble of words, replacing the easy ebb
and flow of spoken conversation. The loss of speech by itself can, in
fact, be every bit as devastating as dealing with the medical condition
that caused it. The Text to Speech specialists at NextUp.com, however,
recently launched a new program, NextUp Talker, to provide an
affordable, easy and natural-sounding voice alternative to computer
users. The company's most recent customer survey shows that the program
is a resounding success.
http://www.nextup.com/press/05312006.html
5/29/06
New Voices from Cepstral
NextUp.com and Cepstral are happy to announce new voices are now
available. The most exciting one is Callie, the best Cepstral voice
yet. You can hear Callie read this newsletter at
http://nextupdownloads.com/files/newsletter55.mp3
Callie
and the other premium Cepstral voices are $29.95 each.
Cepstral also has some very unique character voices. While these aren't
great for listening to serious text, the character voices include Shouty,
Whispery and a few others that are fun to play with. The character
voices are only $6.99 each. Samples, an interactive demo, and details
on purchasing Cepstral voices are available at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
5/29/06
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Better Comprehension using a Variety of Voices
It is
often easier to comprehend and remember things you've heard versus what
you read. With the new high-quality Text To Speech voices we've
introduced over the last few years, listening and understanding
continues to become easier. But listening to a single voice, no matter
how natural it is, can become monotonous and easy to tune out.
We've
built in to TextAloud features that make using a variety of voices
easy. By changing voices frequently, you are more likely to pay
attention and retain the information.
Within
TextAloud, if you choose Options->Voice and File Options from the main
menu, all of the voices available on your system are listed. Top level
folders are the voice type, then the individual voice names are under
that. By selecting a voice, you can click the Enable/Disable button on
the right to choose which voices you want available to TextAloud. Once
you enable multiple voices that you like, click OK. Next, choose
Options->TextAloud Options on the main menu. Under the section labeled
"Multi-Article Options" you'll find the setting for Voice Selection.
The Options are:
Default - Every new article added will use only the voice you've chosen
as your default voice.
Random - When a new article is added, it will be assigned a random voice
from your enabled voices.
Round Robin - Each new article added will be assigned a different voice
from your enabled list. Once you've cycled through all available
voices, the process starts again from the top of the enabled voice list.
By
using either of these methods, you'll hear a wide variety of voices as
you listen to articles or audio files.
TextAloud also has the ability to switch voices within the middle of an
article. This is one of the features that is only available when
TextAloud is set to use SAPI5 Voices Only. To do that, click
Options->Voices and File Options->Engines/Voices, then select either
'Use Sapi5 Only' or 'Use Both'. After this is done, you can right-click
at any spot within the text and choose Insert Voice Change (or choose
Edit->Insert Voice Change) and TextAloud will insert a special voice
change TAG. You can have multiple voice switches within an article.
This allows you to simulate multiple people speaking the text, for
special cases such as reading a script or simply creating variety within
an article.
NextUp.com offers optional premium voices from AT&T Natural Voices (TM),
NeoSpeech (R), Nuance/ScanSoft RealSpeak (R) and Cepstral (R) for the
most natural-sounding computer speech anywhere. Click on the link below
for samples and more information:
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/SpeechEngine/voices.html
Available languages include U.S. English, U.K. English, Indian Accent
English, Scottish Accent English, French, Canadian French, Latin
American Spanish, Castilian (European) Spanish, Mexican Spanish,
Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese,
Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch, Belgian
Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Arabic.
5/29/06
Keeping up with What's New with TextAloud and NextUp.com
We
often get emails asking about the latest version of TextAloud, what has
changed, and what else new we have available.
You
can find out what version of TextAloud you have by choosing Help->About
from the main menu. The version number is near the top of the window.
Our
most current version of TextAloud is always available at
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
The version number is listed on that page, and you'll also find there a
link to the TextAloud release notes. They are at
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/ReleaseNotes.txt
It
isn't interesting reading for most people and sometimes gets a little
technical, but it may help you decide whether you want to download the
latest version. While you don't need to download every version, at
times new features or bug fixes that could be affecting you will be
added.
To
upgrade, if your current version of TextAloud is 2.xxx (anything
starting with 2), you can simply exit TextAloud via File->Exit, then
download and install the new version directly over the old version.
If
your current version is 1.xxx, then while the upgrade isn't free, you
should contact us for details on what version 2 can do for you and for
information on how to upgrade.
We
also frequently have other news including new voices available, new
features, and other news we think you may find useful. This information
will be listed on our What's New Page at
http://nextup.com/whats_new.html
For those who use RSS Readers, the same information is available in your
RSS Reader via
http://www.nextup.com/nextup.xml
5/12/06
Press Release: TextAloud Chosen by Wisconsin
Cooperative Educational Service Agency
Wisconsin's CESA 5
(Cooperative Educational Service Agency 5) is the latest among a long
list of U.S. schools and districts nationwide to choose NextUp's
TextAloud to help its students listen and learn.
http://www.nextup.com/press/05122006.html
5/10/06
Cepstral 4.0 Voices Now Available
Version 4.0 Cepstral
voices are now available. The new Callie voice is the best
Cepstral voice yet. Also 3 interesting new character voices,
Shouty, Whispery, and Dog, as well as improved versions of their
previous voices. Demo and purchase at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
2/23/06
Nuance RealSpeak Voices now available with TextAloud through European
Ecommerce Provider
For our thousands of
users in Europe, we now have the Nuance/ScanSoft RealSpeak voices
available for TextAloud through our European ecommerce provider, ShareIT.
This allows purchase of these great voices in European currencies and
through several Europe friendly payment methods. Samples of the
voices are at
http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html
and purchase via
http://www.shareit.com/product.html?cart=1&productid=300059923
2/22/06
Beta Tests of new voices from NextUp.com and Acapela
We have several new
voices from Acapela Group now available. While the voices are
likely the final versions, we are still calling them beta as we get a
few more users added to make sure TextAloud handles them perfectly.
Take advantage of this beta, because the voices are discounted.
Languages include US and British English, Arabic, Dutch, French, German,
Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish. These are SAPI4
and SAPI5 compatible and are really nice voices.
http://www.nextup.com/beta_acapela.html
2/16/06
Press Release: Assistive Technology Speaks for Those Who Cannot See
Most of us take such
actions as computing, word processing, reading e-mail or surfing the web
for granted. But for those without sight, or who are battling any kind
of visual disability, these tasks can present huge challenges (and
expenses) -- even with all of the sophisticated technology available
today. Luckily, Text to Speech software programs like NextUp.com's
TextAloud help to provide an alternative, turning visual text into
natural and enjoyable speech. With TextAloud, a hard-to-read e-mail or
website becomes an enjoyable listening experience.
http://www.nextup.com/press/02162006.html
1/26/06
Press Release: Nuance RealSpeak Now
Available with TextAloud
TextAloud creators
NextUp.com (www.NextUp.com)
today announced that Nuance® RealSpeak® Solo text-to-speech (TTS), an
outstanding series of premium computer-generated voices, is now offered
as part of TextAloud. With this new speech synthesis software from
Nuance Communications, TextAloud converts text into spoken audio for
listening on a PC, and can also save to audio files for easy playback on
portables like the iPod®. TextAloud now offers U.S., British and
Australian English, Spanish, French and German, as well as new access to
Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian,
Polish, Portuguese and Swedish voices previously unavailable.
http://www.nextup.com/press/01262006.html
1/18/06
NextUp.com Newsletter #54 Online
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter54.html
1/17/06
Press Release: TextAloud is Life-Changing for the
Reading Disabled
Text-to-Speech tool is
essential for reading, studying and using the Internet. It's not easy to
surf the web or read an article or book when your brain wants to switch
letters or simply refuses to decode certain words. This is why
text-to-speech software like NextUp's TextAloud is becoming more and
more essential to the way people read for work, learning, or simple
enjoyment -- regardless of whether they face learning disabilities.
http://www.nextup.com/press/01172006.html
12/12/05
Official Release of ScanSoft RealSpeak Voices
We are happy to announce
we now have ScanSoft RealSpeak voices available for TextAloud and our
other Aloud products. These great voices are available in US
English, British English, Australian English, Mandarin and Cantonese
Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, Canadian French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian and
European), Russian, Spanish (Mexican and European), and Swedish.
Samples and purchase are at
http://www.nextup.com/scansoft.html
12/12/05
New Updates of Aloud products to support ScanSoft Voices
We've done minor updates
of NewsAloud, WeatherAloud, StocksAloud, GroupsAloud, and NextUp Talker
so they now support ScanSoft RealSpeak Voices
http://www.nextup.com/download.html
12/01/05
Press Release: Boomers Use
Text-to-Speech to Browse the Net
... announced today the release of an improved TextAloud toolbar
for Internet Explorer. New features allow watching words highlighted as
spoken within web pages for better comprehension, new options on what is
spoken, and ability to enlarge text for easier reading.
http://www.nextup.com/press/12012005.html
11/18/05
Beta of TextAloud with ScanSoft Voices
For the last couple of
months we've been running semi-private beta tests of TextAloud with
large number of RealSpeak voices from ScanSoft. The voices and
TextAloud are solid now but we'll leave the discounted beta pricing up
for a couple of more days for anyone interested. Details at
http://www.nextup.com/beta_scansoft.html
11/17/05
NextUp.com Newsletter #52 Online
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter52.html
11/17/05
TextAloud Helps with Reading Disabilities
It is estimated that
between five and ten percent of the population experiences learning
disabilities, and reading disabilities are perhaps the most common among
them. Someone with a reading disability may have no difficulty with
comprehension; but until he or she can decode and identify the printed
word on the page, it will appear they do not know the word's meaning.
The feedback we get from educators as well as individuals is that our
TextAloud software can be life-changing in how listening to text as you
are viewing it helps overcome challenges presented by a reading
disability.
If you or someone you know is using TextAloud to help with a reading
disability, we would love to hear from you. Feedback helps us continue
to improve, and we also sometimes use customer testimonials in our
efforts to reach more people with similar needs. Send any email on this
to
support@nextup.com
TextAloud uses voice synthesis to speak aloud documents, web pages,
e-mail and more. It's available with optional premium voices for the
most natural-sounding computer speech available. Purchase TextAloud for
$29.95 at
http://www.nextup.com/purchase.html
11/17/05
OmniPage 15, Best Selling OCR Software
We hear from many
TextAloud users that listen to documents they first scanned and then
converted to electronic text using OCR (Optical Character Recognition)
software. OmniPage 15, from Nuance (formerly ScanSoft), is the most
precise way to convert paper and PDF files into your favorite PC
applications quickly and cost-effectively. Powerful new OCR technology,
advanced layout analysis and intuitive editing tools allow you to
quickly turn paper and PDF files into more than 30 different editable
electronic file formats that look just like the original – complete with
text, tables and graphics. What's more, improved speed and efficient
workflow capabilities combine to make document conversion faster and
easier than you could imagine. Save time and money like never before
with the world’s most powerful document conversion application. You can
learn more about OmniPage 15 and purchase it for $149.99 at
http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-940752-10403716
11/17/05
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Improved IE Toolbar
As many of you know,
TextAloud adds a toolbar to Internet Explorer. We've recently improved
this toolbar. New functions include word highlighting within the web
page, new options on what to read, and buttons to enlarge or shrink text
within the browser windows. To make sure you have the latest version of
the toolbar, you should be running TextAloud version 2.061 or later.
Within TextAloud do Help->About and the version number is shown at the
top of the window. If you have a version lower than 2.061, you can
download the most recent version from
http://www.nextup.com/files/textalouda.exe
After installing the new version you will likely need to reboot to allow
the plugin to install. Then you can display the TextAloud toolbar
within IE using View->Toolbars and checking the TextAloud item.
In addition to the buttons to enlarge and shrink text site (very helpful
on sites with small print or if your vision isn't quite what it used to
be), you'll find 3 options relating to speaking text. These are on a
dropdown menu just to the right of the speak button. These options are
-Speak Highlighted Text (speaks any text you have highlighted in the
window)
-Speak From Cursor (speaks starting at a highlighted word and continue
to end of page)
-Speak Entire Page
Most importantly, as TextAloud speaks the text, each word will be
highlighted, making it much easier to follow along.
Try out these new features and let us know what you think. And as
always, we'd love your suggestions on how we can continue to improve
TextAloud.
Also, if you have any suggestions on tips or tricks you've discovered
with TextAloud that you think others might find useful, email us and
maybe it will be our Tip of the Month soon.
11/17/05
Content Site of the Month - HowStuffWorks.com
Each month we highlight
one site we think is interesting and offers great text for listening,
learning, and staying informed. This months site is
http://www.howstuffworks.com
HowStuffWorks provides clear, reliable explanations of how thousands of
things in our world operate. The wide variety of topics includes things
like:
-How a digital camera works
-How electicity works
-How airplanes fly
-Why we sleep
-All about Homeschooling
-Making Bridges
and just about any other random subject you can think of. These
explanations are typically one or two pages and the site has a link for
a printable version of each article, making the text easily accessible
to TextAloud users. Listen to a couple of articles each day an imagine
how smart you'll be at the end of a year...
11/16/05
SAPI5 Documentation available
For those of you who dig
deep into the technical side of speech, I've uploaded Microsoft's SAPI5
Documenation at the URL below.
http://www.nextup.com/sapi5doc/sapi5doc.html
11/8/05
Press Release: Sacramento State Chooses TextAloud to Help
Students Learn
Text-to-Speech
Software program TextAloud was recently chosen by California State
University, Sacramento to help students with learning disabilities at
its High Tech Center. Thanks to TextAloud, the award-winning software
from NextUp.com, students will now listen, learn, and retain that
information more easily than ever.
http://www.nextup.com/press/11082005.html
11/7/05
Press Release: TextAloud Makes Text-to-Speech a Snap
for Firefox Users
Text-to-Speech
software leader NextUp.com has released version 2.068 of its popular
TextAloud software. This upgrade includes a new Firefox Browser Plugin
which adds a TextAloud toolbar to the popular web browser, allowing
users to listen to web pages read aloud on their computer. Also, users
can easily convert text from web news and web based emails to audio
files for portable listening. This addition compliments the Outlook and
Internet Explorer toolbars also available with TextAloud to make audio
browsing of the internet even easier.
http://www.nextup.com/press/11072005.html
11/2/05
Press Release: NeoSpeech Asian Language Voices
Available with TextAloud
NextUp.com, developer
of TextAloud software, today announced the availability of Chinese,
Japanese and Korean voices text-to-speech voices from NeoSpeech.
TextAloud lets users convert text into spoken audio for easy listening,
study, and comprehension.
http://www.nextup.com/press/11022005.html
11/1/05
Updated TextAloud FAQ
We've finally updated the
TextAloud FAQ pages to more accurately reflect latest version of
TextAloud and to answer the most common questions we get. If you
have other suggestions for things to add, please let us know.
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/tafaq.html
11/1/05
Created new announcement forum for TextAloud Advanced FAQ
This will be filled with
answers to some of the more advanced questions we get on voices and
using TextAloud.
http://nextup.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=11
10/31/05
New Partner Product: TextPipe Web
Use TextPipe Web to
pre-process your files before TextAloud speaks them. You can achieve
more natural speech by converting common acronyms such as ‘UK’ to either
‘U.K.’ or the full ‘United Kingdom’ instead of the default “ukh”. You
can add your own search and replace terms, such as country
abbreviations, measurement abbreviations, common acronyms for your area
of work and much more.
TextPipe Web can also be
used to search and replace websites and other text files.
http://www.nextup.com/partners.html
10/30/05
Cepstral Voices now available on CD
Previously Cepstral
voices were available on by download. We are happy to now be able
to offer these on CD for those users without high-speed internet.
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
10/29/05
Link to New TextAloud Article on Podcasting
New external article from
Marketing Insight's on using TextAloud to create Podcasts
http://www.nextup.com/press/articles.html
10/08/05
Beta Tests of New Voices
We will soon begin beta
testing new voices in Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, Italian, Norwegian,
Polish, Russian and Swedish. If you are a TextAloud user and are
interested in reduced price purchase of these premium voices and are
willing to provide feedback to use, then let us know by emailing us at
betavoices@nextup.com
10/05/05
NextUp.com Newsletter #51 Online
Newsletter discusses new
Asian voices, Firefox Plugin, beta testing of additional new voices
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter51.html
10/05/05
TextAloud Firefox Toolbar
The Firefox browser has
quickly become a popular alternative to Internet Explorer. After
thousands of requests, we have developed a Firefox Plugin or Toolbar for
Firefox. This adds a TextAloud toolbar to the Firefox browser making it
easy to speak web pages or import web news into TextAloud. If you use
the firefox web browser and want to try out the toolbar, download the
latest TextAloud from
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
Close Firefox before installing TextAloud. After installation is
complete, the toolbar should be available within Firefox. You can
display/hide it using View->Toolbars within the Firefox main menu.
10/05/05
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Starting Speaking in the Middle of an Article
One of the most
frequently asked questions we receive is: How do you start speaking in
the middle of a document or TextAloud article, instead of starting at
the beginning every time? There are two helpful solutions to this.
First, you can start speaking at any spot by clicking at that spot in
the TextAloud article, then doing one of the following:
-Right-Click and choose Speak From Cursor Aloud
-Choose Speak->Speak from Cursor Aloud on TextAloud's main menu
-Hit the shortcut key for Speak From Cursor Aloud, which is Control-F4
You can also speak just a section of an article by highlighting the
section, then choosing Speak->Speak Selected Text Aloud menu option.
Finally, bookmarks can be helpful in navigating a long article that you
are frequently working in. You can set bookmarks at any spot within the
text using Edit->Add Bookmark. You name bookmarks yourself, so you can
easily remember what each one represents. Then, you can return to that
spot at any time via Edit->Goto Bookmark. Once returned to a bookmark
location you can use Speak From Cursor Aloud to start speaking at that
spot.
10/05/05
Content Site of the Month - Buzzle.com
We are always looking for
great content ideas from our users. These sites are full of great texts
you can easily turn into great listening. Our site this month is
Buzzle.com at
http://www.buzzle.com
This site is full of content on a variety of topics, including sports,
science, history and more. The articles can be viewed in printable
format, and easily copied into TextAloud. If you have suggested sites
for us, let us know.
10/04/05
Press Release: NextUp Technologies extends relationship with Wizzard
Software
Wizzard Software
announced today that NextUp has extended their relationship with Wizzard
Software and have selected AT&T Natural Voices(R) Desktop edition for
use in one of their assistive software applications, NextUp Talker(TM).
http://www.nextup.com/press/10042005.html
10/03/05
New Voices: Neospeech Adds Japanese, Chinese, Korean
We've officially released
new SAPI5 voices for TextAloud in Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and
Korean. Details at
http://www.nextup.com/neospeech.html
9/20/05
Press Release: Writers Find a 21st Century Muse in TextAloud
As members of an often
solitary and difficult profession, most writers have probably wished for
a writing partner on call - someone able to read their own words back to
them, to test for style and syntax. Luckily, NextUp's TextAloud is the
next best thing - an award-winning Text-to-Speech program that does the
job easily, affordably, and with surprising flexibility. TextAloud
converts text into spoken audio for listening on a PC, and can also save
to MP3/Windows Media files for the added option of easy playback
on-the-go, from iPod to car and beyond. Thanks to an easy and
streamlined program interface, along with a wide array of premium
voices, writers are turning to Text-to-Speech programs like TextAloud in
ever-increasing numbers, as the final vital step in creating their
prose...
http://www.nextup.com/press/092005.html
9/19/05
Updated Articles and Reviews Page
Updated our press
Articles and Reviews page with several mentions this year and last that
we never put up at
http://www.nextup.com/press/articles.html
9/08/05
NextUp.com Newsletter #50 online
Our latest installment of
the NextUp.com Newsletter, our 50th edition in 5 years is now available
at
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter50.html
9/08/05
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Using Skins to Change TextAloud's Appearance
From time to time we get
suggestions to improve the appearance of the TextAloud window. While
TextAloud may have a ton of features and work great, some users seem to
think it is ugly. Perhaps beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if
you think TextAloud is ugly, TextAloud 2 includes skins. Skins are a
way to drastically change the look of a program. You can find these
under View->Skins on the TextAloud main menu. You can choose from over
60 unique looks for the program to change window shape and color
scheme.
One thing to note. If you are sight-impaired and use a screen reader,
don't use skins as the screen readers do not like them. Otherwise, have
fun playing with different looks of TextAloud.
9/08/05
Content Site of the Month
We are always looking for
great content ideas from our users. These sites are full of great texts
you can easily turn into great listening. Our site this month is
Classic Reader at
http://www.classicreader.com/
The site claims 3061 complete books or stories by 320 authors, so happy
listening. If you have suggested sites for us, let us know.
9/08/05
AV Voice Reader, Acoustica CD Burner and More...
Over the last few years
we've collected a list of our favorite software programs that fit well
with our products. We've gathered these all onto one page at
http://www.nextup.com/partners.html
Many of these have downloadable trial versions, and offer functionality
that really work well with our programs or fit well with the interests
of our typical users. This month we'd like to highlight two of these
programs in particular:
AV Voice Changer provides a variety of audio effects capable of
drastically altering the sound of a voice, either live out of TextAloud
or within an mp3 file. This gives you virtually an unlimited number of
sounds or personalities you can create.
Acoustica MP3 CD Burner is a full featured CD burner capable of taking
MP3 files created by TextAloud and our other programs and burns them
onto audio CDs which can be played back in any CD Player.
Other programs on our partners page include functions from Translation,
Telephone Answering, Creating Talking Pictures, Recording Radio Shows,
and editing audio files. Please check out all of these interesting
products at
http://www.nextup.com/partners.html
9/08/05
NextUp Talker Reminder
Just a reminder, we are
still trying to spread the word about our NextUp Talker program. This
program is specifically designed for people who have trouble speaking,
and offers great sounding speech for those who can no longer talk.
Compared to specialized devices which can cost as much as $3000, NextUp
Talker can literally change the life of those who need a communications
aide. If you know of anyone needing this type of product, please let
them know about NextUP Talker at
http://www.talkforme.com
9/07/05
PRESS RELEASE: TextAloud adds Japanese, Chinese and Korean Voices
NextUp.com (www.NextUp.com)
announces public beta testing of TextAloud with support for new
languages. A leading text-to-speech software tool for consumers,
educators, and business customers, TextAloud converts text into spoken
audio for listening on a PC, and can also save to MP3/Windows Media
files for easy playback on portables like the iPodâ, or use in the
creation of Podcasts. This newest version of TextAloud offers unicode
support providing access to Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, and
other languages previously unavailable.
http://www.nextup.com/press/090805.html
8/30/05
New Italian voice Vittoria from Cepstral
We've just released a new
Italian voice named Vittoria. She's our first premium Italian
voice and costs $29.95. You can hear samples, try her in the new
Cepstral interactive demo, and purchase at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
8/24/05
TextAloud 2.055 Released
Changes include first
release of FireFox toolbar/plugin, and Internet Explorer plugin has new
options including word highlighting and speak from cursor. Latest
version available for download at
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
8/13/05
TextAloud beta for Russian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese
We are conducting beta
tests now of TextAloud 2.1, which includes unicode support for use with
Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese voices. For more info on
trying it out, see our Beta page at
http://www.nextup.com/beta.html
8/9/05
Press Release:
Making
Email Talk with NextUp.com's TextAloud
NextUp.com (www.NextUp.com)announces
the release of TextAloud 2.051, an update to the leading text-to-speech
software tool for consumers, educators, and business customers.
TextAloud converts text into spoken audio for listening on a PC, and can
also save to MP3/Windows Media files for easy playback on portables like
the iPod®, or use in the creation of Podcasts. This newest version of
TextAloud offers new and specific enhancements for users who use the
program to listen to their emails in Microsoft Outlook®.
http://www.nextup.com/press/080905.html
8/8/05
Press Release:
Online
Students Say Listening Equals Learning
Text-to-Speech (TTS)
software leader NextUp.com (www.NextUp.com) has released its Customer
Survey, which focused on users who utilize its text-to-speech software
TextAloud™ for online learning purposes.
http://www.nextup.com/press/072105.html
7/20/05
TextAloud 2.051 available for download
TextAloud 2.051 is now
available. Includes minor bug fixes, support for new version of
Neospeech Kate and Paul, and installer now allows custom install if you
do not want to install Outlook and IE toolbars.
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
7/03/05
NextUp.com NewsLetter #49 Online Now
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter49.html
7/03/05
Content Site of the Month
Each month we like to
feature a web site on the net that contains great text you can easily
move into TextAloud for listening. This month we wanted to find a good
news site. We know many of our customers use TextAloud to create audio
files from current news stories to listen on the go with portable audio
players. A great site for this is
http://news.myway.com/index.html
Similar to Yahoo, Google and other sites that include news feeds, MyWay
has the advantage of no banner ads or popups, and also typically much
cleaner pages where the news text is easy to copy cleanly.
Also remember, if you haven't already, check out our NewsAloud product
at
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/index.html
NewsAloud can automatically retrieve news stories from about a dozen
categories and create audio files or let you listen live on your PC.
You can download a trial version of NewsAloud at
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/download.html
7/03/05
TextAloud 2.0 Tip of the Month - Batch File Converter
TextAloud 2.0 includes a
convenient method for converting a large number of text files to audio
files quickly. From the TextAloud main menu, select File->Batch File
Converter. From this window you can select any number of existing text,
Word, or PDF files as well as details for the output audio files such as
file format, voice, etc. This feature can save a great deal of time if
you frequently convert several files.
Details on this and other TextAloud features can be found in the
TextAloud 2.0 manual at
http://www.nextup.com/manual.html
7/03/05
About NextUp.com Voices
Over the past several
years of working with you, we've heard again and again that you like
having a wide variety of voices. Whether just simply to provide
variety, to simulate multiple characters, or for use with foreign
languages, many users use several different voices. So, we've made it a
priority to offer an ever-growing variety of TTS Voices. As this stable
of voices continues to grow, we wanted to take this chance to summarize
what is currently available, and let you know we will be adding more.
Older Free Voices
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the bottom section of
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/SpeechEngine/voices.html
we have several older free voices that are available for download.
These include Mary, Mike, and Sam from Microsoft, as well as a dozen or
so old Lernout & Hauspie voices available in US English, UK English,
Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
These voices are built on technologies that are about a decade old, and
they sound very much like computers or robots speaking.
Now let's look at newer generation voices. These are all built based on
actual human sounds and provide much better quality.
AT&T Natural Voices
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT&T Natural Voices provide very high-quality, human sounding speech.
Each voice takes up between 300 and 600 megabytes of disk space, and is
available by download or shipped on CD. The voices are very human
sounding, not robotic. There are 18 voices available in all, in
languages including US English, UK English, Indian Accent English,
Spanish, German, French, and Canadian French. They can be purchased in
the highest quality 16khz version, or a slightly cheaper and smaller
footprint 8khz version. Samples, more information and purchase of these
is at
http://www.nextup.com/attnv.html
NeoSpeech Voices
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NextUp.com also offers voices from NeoSpeech. Kate and Paul are very
natural sounding US English voices. While all voices support speed
adjustments, NeoSpeech voices also support pitch adjustments, meaning
you can adjust to your taste and for additional variety. Most users we
talk with believe that these voices sound more natural than any other
voice on the market, but may make a few more pronunciation errors, which
can be corrected with our built-in pronunciation editor. Samples and
purchase info for Neospeech Kate and Paul can be found at
http://www.nextup.com/neospeech.html
Cepstral Voices
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, we also have a large set of voices from Cepstral. These voices
are quite unique and differ greatly from the NeoSpeech and AT&T voices.
While they aren't nearly as natural sounding, they have other
advantages. They require much less disk space, between 30 and 50
megabytes. They are very accurate, require less computer processor
time, and are very fast at making audio files. Cepstral Voices also
support speed and pitch adjustments. 18 voices are available in all, in
languages including US English, English Female Child, Scottish Accent,
UK English, Canadian French, German, and Spanish. Samples and more info
at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
Also, Cepstral just announced they have voices available for Mac users
at
http://www.nextup.com/redir/cepstral.html
If you have any questions regarding any of our voices, just let us know
at support@nextup.com.
Also, stay tuned for upcoming announcements of high-quality voices in
additional languages including Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Korean,
Japanese, and Chinese.
7/03/05
Spreading the word about NextUp Talker
We recently announced the
release of NextUp Talker 1.0, an Assistive Technology product
specifically designed for people who have temporarily or permanently
lost their voices. Now, we need your help. If you know of anyone that
could use this technology, or know of organizations or web sites that
specialize in helping those with physical impairments that prevent them
from speaking, please let us know and help tell others about NextUp
Talker.
With the range of natural, human-sounding voices available from
NextUp.com, as well as a host of quick and convenient shortcuts for
conversational, commonly-used sentences and phrases, NextUp Talker
allows users to easily communicate with others despite vocal
impairments, using Windows-based Desktop, Laptop or Tablet PCs.
You can download a free 30 Day Trial version of NextUp Talker now from
http://www.talkforme.com/downloads.html
NextUp Talker is available for purchase for $99.95 at
http://www.talkforme.com/purchase.html
Thanks for helping us spread the word about this important new product.
5/21/05
New Outlook Plugin/Toolbar for TextAloud
TextAloud 2.035 is now
available. It includes a TextAloud toolbar added to Outlook to
make speaking emails for Outlook users much easier.
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
5/17/05
NextUp Talker 1.0 now available.
NextUp Talker is a Text
To Speech application specifically designed for people who have
temporarily or permanently lost their voice. With natural, human
sounding voices and convenient shortcuts to quickly enter commonly used
sentences and phrases, NextUp Talker allows you to easily communicate
with others despite vocal impairments using a Windows PC or Tablet PC.
http://talkforme.com/
5/17/05
NextUp Talker Press Release available.
New NextUp Talker
Software Provides Affordable Speech for People Silenced by Medical
Conditions
http://www.nextup.com/press/051705.html
5/16/05
New Cepstral Voices - Diane and Robin
We now have a new Cepstral
voice available, Diane. Plus the return of a new version of our
favorite, Robin, the only Child TTS Voice available. Cepstral voices
are around 25mb's and very responsive, taking up very little system
resources and very fast when making audio files. Samples and purchase
at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
5/10/05
8khz Versions of All AT&T Voices Now available
We now are able to offer
the 8khz versions of all of the AT&T Natural Voices. Previously
only Mike and Crystal were available. While the 8khz versions are
lower quality sound wise, they also cost less and take up only half of
the disk space. While the 16khz versions sound like voice over FM
Radio, the 8khz versions sound much closer to telephone or AM Radio
voices. Samples and purchase are available at
http://www.nextup.com/attnv.html
4/20/05
NextUp.com Newsletter #48 Available
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter48.html
4/20/05
Neat Customer Site - CD MP3 Talking Books
CD MP3 Talking Books is
putting TextAloud to the ultimate test of
endurance. They are publishing full length talking books and using a
different Cepstral voice for each character in the story. It's a whole
new experience for those who listen to audio books. Check it out at
http://cdbooks.us.
4/20/05
NextUp.com Announces Arnaud from AT&T Natural Voices
We are happy to announce
we are now selling Arnaud, a great new Canadian French voice from AT&T
Natural Voices
http://www.nextup.com/attnv.html
We've had a lot of demand for a Canadian French voice and we think
you'll love Arnaud, so be sure to check out this exciting new voice from
AT&T Natural Voices.
Arnaud is only $35 USD and is available for high-speed download or on
CD. You can purchase him at
https://www.plimus.com/jsp/buynow.jsp?contractId=1629594
4/20/05
TextAloud Customer Survey for Online Learning Use
We hear from many of you
who are pursuing degrees through online education at schools like the
University of Phoenix and others. TextAloud is a natural fit for
education, and especially so for programs where the learning materials
are already in electronic text format. If you are pursuing your degree
while working you'll also appreciate how TextAloud can turn your commute
or other downtime into productive study time to help you perform better
in school. You can listen on your PC, or save your study materials to
MP3 or WMA files to bring with you to the gym, in the car, or anyplace
you go.
This is a fast-growing use and we'd like to hear from those of you who
have tried it. Please take a moment to complete this brief survey
http://www.nextup.com/onlinelearningsurvey.html
to help us serve you better.
4/20/05
New Outlook Plugin coming - Beta Testers Needed
In the never ending
process of improving TextAloud, we are developing a plugin for use with
Outlook. For those that use Outlook as your email client (not Outlook
Express), the plugin will allow you to easily select emails and have
them spoken or added to TextAloud as new articles. We need a handful of
experienced users who are interested in this functionality to help test
it and give us your feedback. If you are interested, email us at
support@nextup.com
and let us know.
4/20/05
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Working with Pauses
Depending on the voices
you use, you may wish to adjust pauses or silence in TextAloud
speaking. Pauses can make text sound more natural and make it easier to
understand. There are two methods for adjusting pauses.
Predefined Pauses:
You can adjust how much silence there is after sentences and paragraphs
in TextAloud. By default each voice will have some amount of silence at
the end of a sentence. Typically voices do not automatically add
additional silence at the end of paragraphs, but adding some can
increase comprehension. Within TextAloud 2.0, if you choose
Options-->TextAloud Options on the main menu, then click the Predefined
Pauses TAB, you'll find 2 settings you can adjust.
Sentence Pause Interval is the amount of additional silence to add to
the end of each sentence. Paragraph Pause Interval is the amount of
additional silence to add to the end of each paragraph. Change the
default 0 to the number of seconds you'd like added for each of these.
For example, if you'd like an additional one and a half seconds of
silence added at the end of each sentence, change this value to 1.5. If
you'd like a longer pause after paragraphs, set this value to 3 for
example.
Manual Pauses:
In addition, there may be times when you manually want to insert
silence. This can help if you are creating audio files and you need to
improve the flow or comprehension of the audio. To insert a manual
pause, click at the spot in the text where you'd like to insert the
pause. Next, right-click, and from the popup menu, choose "Insert
Pause". A popup menu will appear with several predefined values, or
choose "User Defined" to specify exactly how many seconds of pause you
would like included. TextAloud will insert a special pause tag in the
text, which looks something like "{{Pause=0.5}}". In this case, a 1/2
second silence will be inserted into the audio.
4/20/05
New Feature - Content Site of the Month
We often get suggestions
from our users detailing web sites they frequently use to gather
interesting listening material from. These range from ebook sites to
Internet news sites and are great free sources for news, information,
and entertainment. So, we thought we'd start sharing those with
everyone in a monthly feature in our newsletter.
This months featured site is
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
This is the ebook library from the University of Virginia. With over
1,800 publicly available ebooks, this site provides an excellent source
for classic British and American fiction as well as children's
literature and various history books. Books are available in several
formats including web only formats which work well with TextAloud.
If you have favorite sites you use with TextAloud, pass them along to us
at support@nextup.com.
2/15/05
NextUp.com Announces New Voices from Cepstral
We are happy to announce we are now selling
some great new voices from Cepstral.
http://nextup.com/Cepstral.html
New US Voices are headlined by Amy and David, but there are also great new
voices in UK English, Canadian French, German, and Spanish. You can hear
samples and buy the voices at
http://nextup.com/Cepstral.html
These exciting, small footprint voices are SAPI5 compatible, meaning they
work in all NextUp.com products as well as most other newer windows
programs. They are much smaller than other voices, averaging under 50mb of
disk space, take less memory and CPU, and work very fast when creating audio
files.
2/15/05
NextUp Talker Available to Help Those Who Cannot Speak
NextUp Talker, formerly named TalkForMe
during our initial tests, is now available for purchase at
http://www.TalkForMe.com
This program is specifically designed for those who can no longer speak. It
makes carrying on conversations or talking over the phone possible for those
who can no longer speak. We are very excited about this program based on
the feedback we've had from several users. This type of technology can
truly change a person's life, so if you know of anyone who has trouble
speaking, be sure to let him or her know about NextUp Talker at
http://www.TalkForMe.com
2/15/05
TextAloud Tip of the Month - Using the TextAloud 2.0 Internet Explorer
Plug-in
For those of you using TextAloud 2.0, if you
haven't found it yet, we've included a Plug-in Toolbar for Internet
Explorer. The IE Toolbar Plug-in allows you to access some of TextAloud's
features directly from within Internet Explorer, making it easy to speak or
capture text from web pages.
To enable the TextAloud toolbar, within Internet Explorer choose
View->Toolbars->TextAloud on the Internet Explorer main menu. This will
display a new toolbar within Internet Explorer. There are 5 items displayed
in the toolbar:
1) The Speak button - If you highlight text on the displayed web page, the
highlighted text will be spoken. If no text is highlighted, the entire page
is spoken.
2) The Stop Button - Stops any current speaking.
3) Create Article Button - This button will create a new article within
TextAloud from the selected text on the web page. If no text is selected or
highlighted, then the new article will contain all of the text on the web
page. This function is especially useful if you visit web pages to capture
news stories and later turn those into MP3 files.
4) TextAloud Options Button - Gives you access to preferences and settings
used by TextAloud.
5) Voice Dropdown - Use this to select the voice to be used when speaking
from Internet Explorer.
So if you haven't tried it yet, check out the TextAloud 2.0 Internet
Explorer Plug-in. We hope to have other plug-ins soon including MS Word,
Firefox and Opera Browsers, and more...
There is more information on this and other topics in the TextAloud 2.0
manual downloadable at
http://www.nextup.com/manual.html
If you haven't upgraded to TextAloud 2.0 yet, check for full details at
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/New2.html
2/15/05
NextUp.com Newsletter #47 online
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter47.html
1/31/05
New Cepstral Voices now available
Just launched new voices from Cepstral. 3
new US, 2 UK, 2 German, 2 Canadian French, and 2 Spanish voices. Samples
and purchase at
http://www.nextup.com/Cepstral.html
12/29/04
NextUp.com Newsletter #46 online
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter46.html
12/29/04
Attention - Buyers Outside the United States
Recent weakness in the US dollar means this is
a great time for people outside the US to buy our products. Please note that
those of you outside the US who want to take advantage of this can purchase
through Share-It, our European reseller
http://www.nextup.com/redir/shareit.html
Payment can be made in a variety of International currencies and you still get
the same great NextUp.com products and service.
12/29/04
Easy Burning of Audio CDs
This months partner product makes it simple and easy to burn audio CDs from
any audio file, including MP3 files you create with TextAloud and our other
products. Acoustica's MP3 CD Burner allows simple drag, drop, and burn
creation of CDs, giving you another great way to listen to text away from the
computer.
You can buy Acoustica MP3 CD Burner for only $24.95 at
http://store.esellerate.net/a.asp?c=0_SKU9321657660_AFL1912586825
or try a demo version at
http://nextupdownloads.com/files/acoustica.exe
12/29/04
TextAloud 2.0 Tip of the Month - Proofreading with TextAloud
One great way to improve your writing is with better proofreading. Spell
checkers catch the typos but don't help much with missing or wrong words, or
with bad grammar. Whether you write for a living or just want your emails to
be mistake free, using TextAloud to listen to text will help catch most
mistakes. To make this process even easier, in TextAloud 2.0 we've created a
special proofreading process that makes catching mistakes and correcting them
very simple.
You start by setting a proofread hotkey. Go to Options->Hotkey Setup on the
TextAloud main menu, and select a hotkey combination for Proofreading.
Hotkeys are special key combinations that you can press within any program,
and as long as TextAloud is running (even if the window isn't displayed),
TextAloud will take an action. You want the hotkey to be an obscure
combination so that it will be unique and not in use by other programs. We
recommend Control-Alt-Shift-P for Proofread. Once this is set, click OK. Now
you can minimize the TextAloud window.
After typing in your document or email, highlight a paragraph of text with
your mouse, then hold down the Shift, Control, and Alt keys, and press P. The
TextAloud Proofread window will pop up. The text of the paragraph will be
spoken, with each word highlighted. If you hear a mistake, simply click
anywhere on the proofread window and speaking will stop, returning you to your
original document to make the correction. You simply repeat this process
through the document until it is mistake free. Based on the feedback we've
heard so far, this easy process can quickly lead to mistake free writing.
12/29/04
Upgrade to TextAloud 2.0 Now
Our offer for previous TextAloud buyers to get the TextAloud 2.0 upgrade for
$19.95 ($10 off the price for new buyers) ends this month so if you haven't
already, be sure to take advantage of this upgrade opportunity.
TextAloud 2.0 has a cleaner, more powerful interface, gives you more control
over voices, lets you open Word, PDF and HTML files directly, and has a new
Internet Explorer Toolbar Plug-In. To read about more new features, check out
screen shots, and watch a short flash presentation of new features, go to
this page
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/New2.html
To get your upgrade now, visit
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/BuyUpgrade.html
12/14/04
TalkForMe site released.
TalkForMe, our new product for those who can no
longer speak is now available in a stable beta, can be purchased, and the site
is now ready at
http://www.talkforme.com
11/22/04
TalkForMe Beta - Ready for Second Round of Testers
------
As mentioned in the last newsletter, we are
working on a product specifically designed to help those who can no longer
speak. In the last couple of weeks we've heard from dozens of people who this
product is already helping. If you or someone you know can no longer use
their voice and you are interested in trying a version of this product before
its official release, please email us at
TalkForMe@nextup.com
11/22/04
Survey for TextAloud Users Who Have Portable Audio Devices
------
Many of you have already discovered the
benefits of using TextAloud in combination with a portable audio device like
the iPod, a PocketPC, flash memory MP3 players, or CD players. This can free
you up to listen to email, web pages, or any electronic text on the go. Save
your daily reading to MP3 or WMA files and bring the web with you to the gym,
in the car, or anyplace you go.
This is a fast-growing use and we'd like to hear from those of you who have
tried it. Please take a moment to complete this brief survey
http://www.nextup.com/portableaudiosurvey.html
to help us serve you better.
11/22/04
AV Voice Changer Offer
------
Many TextAloud users have discovered a neat way
to create new sounding voices using a product called AV Voice Changer. This
software product allows you to morph the sound of audio playing on your
computer or within audio files, adjusting pitch and tone as well as easily add
special affects. This lets you take the sound of a particular TextAloud voice
and make the speaker sound older, younger, robotic, almost anything you can
imagine.
You can buy AV Voice Changer at
http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=6129-5&affiliate=20052
and the download demo at
http://www.regnow.com/trialware/download/Download_vcsgold.exe?item=6129-5&affiliate=20052
11/22/04
Upgrade to TextAloud 2.0 Now]
------
If you haven't already done so, this is an
upgrade you don't want to miss.
TextAloud 2.0 has a cleaner, more powerful interface, gives you more control
over voices, lets you open Word, PDF and HTML files directly, and has a new
Internet Explorer Toolbar Plug-In. To read about more new features, check out
screen shots, and watch a short flash presentation of new features, go to
this page
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/New2.html
To get your upgrade now, visit
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/BuyUpgrade.html
11/21/04
HTML TextAloud Manual
TextAloud 2.0 manual is now available in HTML
format at
http://nextup.com/TextAloudHTML.htm
10/29/04
Upgrade to TextAloud 2.0 Now
The response to our recent announcement for the
TextAloud 2.0 release has been outstanding and many of you have already
upgraded. This is an important new release packed with the most-requested
features, so it's an upgrade you don't want to miss.
TextAloud 2.0 has a cleaner, more powerful interface, gives you more control
over voices, lets you open Word, PDF and HTML files directly, and has a new
Internet Explorer Toolbar Plug-In. To read about more new features, check out
screen shots, and watch a short flash presentation of new features, go to
this page
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/New2.html
Here are just a few of the things you'll get when you upgrade to TextAloud
2.0:
- Better looking and easier to use interface.
- Read Word, PDF, and HTML files.
- Speed, Pitch, and Volume adjustments on the main window.
- WMA along with MP3 and Wave file creation.
- Internet Explorer toolbar makes speaking web pages easier than ever.
- New Proofread HotKey for simple proofreading
- Batch File Converter
- Voice changes within a single article.
- Support for skins.
- Advanced text editing features like Search/Replace and more.
- Advanced pronunciation editing using regular expressions and masks.
- Configurable pauses between sentences and paragraphs.
- Set samples rates on WAV files.
- 84 page printable TextAloud Users Reference Manual
- Much more...
To get your upgrade now, visit
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/BuyUpgrade.html
10/29/04
New Product for people who have lost their voice
Over the last few years we've had many people
write us about family or friends who have lost their voice, either temporarily
or permanently. Speaking is something we all generally take for granted, but
losing the ability can mean a drastic change in life for the patient and
everyone around them. Many of these people use TextAloud to help them speak
to family and friends, answer the phone, etc. After talking with voice
impaired users and doctors about the type of program they really need for use
in conversation, we are nearing an early release of a new product specifically
designed to help those people who can no longer speak. If you or someone you
know has lost the use of their voice, we will soon start beta testing of this
new product. Beta testing involves trying out early versions of the program
and letting us know of any problems, questions, or suggestions you have to
help make the product better. If you are interested in taking part in this
beta test, please email us at
TalkForMe@nextup.com
and we'll add you to the mailing list for the upcoming beta test.
10/15/04
Newsletter #44 online
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter44.html
10/1/04
Newsletter #43 announcing 2.0 release now
available at
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter43.html
9/27/04
We will soon begin starting beta tests for a
new product specifically designed for people who have lost the use of their
voices and want to use the computer to help them communicate with others.
If you are interested in being a beta tester, please email
TalkForMe@nextup.com
9/26/04
TextAloud 2.0 Upgrade now officially Available.
Check out details and flash presentation of what's new at
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/New2.html
9/26/04
TextAloud 2.0 now on the main download page
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/download.html
9/26/04
New page up describing how to use TextAloud
with Web Site applications
http://www.nextup.com/taonweb.html
9/26/04
TextAloud price is now $29.95 for TextAloud
2.0. Upgrade for previous buyers is $19.95. 84 page printable
manual available when you purchase.
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/BuyUpgrade.html
9/20/04
New pages detailing TextAloud's API and Command line details are at
http://www.nextup.com/api.html and
http://www.nextup.com/cl.html
9/18/04
The final beta version of TextAloud 2.0 before
release is now available. It is a 20 day trial, you can't get
registration codes for it yet. Check back here in a few days and they
should be available. You can download it at
http://nextup.fileburst.com/TA2080b.exe
9/18/04
Our RSS Feed is being updated regularly now.
If you use an RSS Reader (like NewsAloud or others) the URL is
http://www.nextup.com/nextup.xml
9/7/04
With the coming release of TextAloud 2.0, we will be changing the name of the
product from TextAloud MP3, to simply TextAloud. Starting the process
now of updating all pages on the site to reflect new name. If you are
interested in trying TextAloud 2.0 beta, email us at
beta@nextup.com.
9/7/04
Partner Product AV Voice Changer allows you to change the sounds of your voice
or TTS Voices. Downloadable demo version now available at
http://www.nextup.com/partners.html
7/29/04
Newsletter $42 - Following Election with NewsAloud, NeoSpeech Voices plug,
Writer's Digest, Scanning Solutions.
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter42.html
6/10/04
NextUp.com NewsLetter #41, June, 2004 now
available at
http://www.nextup.com/newsletter41.html
6/9/04
Exciting new voices from NextUp.com and
NeoSpeech now available at
http://www.nextup.com/neospeech.html
5/28/04
GroupsAloud 1.00 released
http://nextup.com/GroupsAloud/download.html
5/25/04
NewsAloud version 1.00 released.
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/download.html
5/19/04
NewsAloud version 0.90 is now available.
Now includes help file
http://nextup.com/NewsAloud/download.html
5/4/04
We've begun experimenting with letting buyers
download AT&T Natural Voices. Details at
http://www.nextup.com/attdownload.html
4/27/04
New Features to allow use of NewsAloud with
Tivo Home Media
Option.
4/19/04
Added new TextAloud testimonials page, will be
adding some of the comments we've received
http://nextup.com/TextAloud/testimonials.html
4/12/04
We are currently starting beta tests of
TextAloud 2.0. If you buy TextAloud now, you'll get a free upgrade to
2.0 when released and save since 2.0 will have a price increase.
If you are interested in trying out 2.0 beta version, email
beta@nextup.com.
4/6/04
New TextAloud version 1.499 now available for
download. Release Notes summarizing the changes are at
http://www.nextup.com/TextAloud/ReleaseNotes.txt
You can download this version
at
http://dl.downloadhosting.com/download/nextup/TxAl1499.exe
4/1/04
Check out our new partner, RealizeVoice.
We get a lot of requests for voice recognition software so here's something
you should check out. Realize Voice lets you increase productivity by
controlling your computer using voice. Depending on your needs - complement,
reduce or eliminate your use of the keyboard and mouse. Anyone can use this
software to perform everyday tasks such as browsing the web or sending email,
including people with disabilities or repetitive stress injuries. With
Realize Voice, you can even dictate emails and documents and your computer
will convert to text. You can download a trial version now from
http://www.nextup.com/files/rzrv40download.exe
3/31/04
NextUp.com Newsletter #40 now available.
Highlights include:
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