YSPEAK     

Record 8 of 8.

--- DISCONTINUED. (Verified 11/2008) RETAINED IN DATABASE FOR REFERENCE. --- YSpeak is a voice output communicator program designed for use by individuals with speech, neurological, and severe physical disabilities. It is designed to assist communication in a variety of ways, reducing input from the user to the minimum. The program speaks typed input in any one of 25 different male and female voices. As the user types, the program speaks the typed text either word-by-word, by line, by sentence, or when requested by the user. Input text is displayed in any font, size, style, or color. To allow someone else to read the text, it can also be displayed inverted at the top of the screen, so when the program is used on a portable device, someone sitting opposite the user can read the text as it is input. To allow for a limited viewing angle, the text can also be displayed in negative (white on black). The program has two user-selectable built-in dictionaries, one covering the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language, and the other covering over 25,000 words. In either dictionary, as soon as the user types the first two letters of a word, the program looks up words starting with those letters, and displays them in a separate window. The user can then select the word from this list without typing the whole word. The program also tracks words as they are entered, and attempts to predict the next word when one is entered. In doing this, it learns from the user. Five separate word lists each allow up to 35 words to be entered by typing a single key; lists can be changed with a single key. For users who have difficulty with a standard keyboard, the program includes an on-screen keyboard, which can be accessed with any pointing device. A separate window allows the user to click on any one of 42 on-screen buttons, each of which speaks a user-defined phrase. These phrases can be input phonetically, allowing any language to be used. All functions can be invoked either by pull-down menu, by on-screen button, or by function key. The dictionaries, word lists, and button speech are all customizable. The program stores previous settings and loads these on start-up. Previous settings can be cleared by pressing one key. Input text can be saved to a disk file in a format that can be read by all word processing packages. COMPATIBILITY: For use on Apple Macintosh desktop or laptop, iBook laptop, or iMac computers. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Apple Macintosh operating system; minimum screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

Notes: This program may be downloaded free from the manufacturer's web site. It is written in FutureBASIC^3 from Staz Software, and its source code is included on the FutureBASIC CD.

Price: FREE.

This product record was updated on November 20, 2008.

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Record 8 of 8.