Automatic Generation of Interactive Talking Books.

1. Automatic Generation of Interactive Talking Books. Aanchal Jain Department of Computer Science University of Texas at Dallas ALPS Lab @UTD

2. Where do we feel ---”I wish this book could talk!” • Military Trenches – Military equipment manuals –”There is no light---How will I read this?” Braille – Invented in 1929 by Louis Braille for military purposes ALPS Lab @UTD

3. Fire fighting ---”What is this chemical, don’t have time to read ” • Traveling ”It’s boring, I wish I could read this book!”“I am lost , I wish somebody could tell me the way!” ALPS Lab @UTD

4. Who really needs their books to talk? • Visually impaired People • Elderly People • People who can’t afford computers • People who are not computer savvy ALPS Lab @UTD

5. FAQ 1.Why solve the problem ? • No common automated solution available • Easier to listen then to read • People with print disability don’t have access to published material • Not everybody can afford computers, but they can afford phones

6. Use of recorded Cassettes • No easy navigation • Rewind , Play , Pause , Forward Manually • Costly affair • http://www.daisy.org/ • There mission is to provide all published information to the people with print disability. • As of now no solution 2. What are the current solutions ?

7. 3.The basic idea • Enable user to have full control over the books written in HTML • Implement using inexpensive methods • To leverage the existing technology • VXML and HTML – existing technology

8. 4.Our Solution “Interactive Talking Book” What does it do ? • Talking books is the concept of aurally navigating the Digital Books, over the phone, PDA’s or mobile. • Ideally it enables the users to navigate through the digital books which is analogous to visual reading. • It’s the eyes free reading. • Users can move around a digital book like they do it with printed books.

9. 5.How can we use it ? • Just dial a toll free number • Speak your URL • Example--Want to read “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” • http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/marktwain/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer/Chap0.html • And here we go • Trust me you will never get bored

10. 6.How does it work? • It’s a multi-layer model • Front end – VXML Browser • Middle Layer – Java and CGI • Translate HTML to VXML • Enhance VXML static page • Backend – HTML Web Server

11. 7.What is VXML ? • VXML – Voice + XHTML • W3C's standard XML format for specifying interactive voice dialogues between a human and a computer. • Fully analogous to HTML • HTML - visual web browser • VXML - voice browser

12. 8.What's its Architecture?

13. 9.What Does Enhancer do? • User has Dynamic navigation • Skip • Repeat • Pause, Resume & Stop • Back & Forward • Dynamic Voice Anchors • Place anchor • Recall

14. DEMO

15. 10.Future Work • Forms – Fill forms • Summarize – Selects first and last line of a paragraph. • Indexing – Build index and navigate through it . • Implementing voice-commanded scripting languages.

16. 11.Other Applications of this technology • Airline reservation • Can be used in schools to TEACH • During crisis ---best solution • Improves WEB accessibility

17. To Summarize Say No to recorded tapes to read books No navigation Talking books makes lives easy Finally somebody can read

18. Questions