Skip to main content

The visually impaired may soon have an audio version of Wikipedia

wikipedia text to speech
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Wikipedia really is for everyone, and that now includes people whose vision is not sufficient to allow them to read printed text (or who are unable to read for other reasons). Thanks to a new open source project, the people’s encyclopedia is adding a text-to-speech synthesis that will allow for certain parts of Wiki entries to be read aloud, enabling the visually impaired — but also those who are learning disabled or illiterate — to tap into the vast knowledge base of the Internet as well. Incredibly, this ambitious project is slated to be off the ground by 2017, at which time English, Swedish, and Arabic speakers will be able to hear as well as read Wikipedia posts.

A joint effort between the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the free encyclopedia, the speech synthesis platform is currently being created by scientists in Stockholm, and once it’s ready, Wikipedia will host these speech synthesis servers, and subsequently develop a platform optimized for this new tool. The software will further be made open source and readily available to anyone who wants it, provided they use the MediaWiki software.

Recommended Videos

“We will build an open framework where any open source speech synthesizer can be plugged in. Since it is open source modules, it will also be possible to add or substitute certain modules in the Text-to-Speech system (TTS),” professor Joakim Gustafson, head of KTH’s speech group, said in an interview with TechCrunch. “The TTS will be open source so anybody could of course use that functionality for any use (not only reading wiki (or other) Web pages.”

This new software will, of course, be phenomenally useful to anyone who is either visually impaired or suffers from a learning disability. And while the current focus rests upon three languages, Gustafson notes that this could later be expanded.

“Initially, our focus will be on the Swedish language, where we will make use of our own language resources,” Gustafson says. “Then we will do a basic English voice, which we expect to be quite good, given the large amount of linguistic resources. And finally, we will do a rudimentary Arabic voice that will be more a proof of concept.”

Of course, with 280 more languages in which you can currently read Wikipedia entries, there’s still a ways to go. But hey, we’ve gotta start somewhere, and this seems like a project worth waiting for.

Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
PayPal vs. Venmo vs. Cash App vs. Apple Cash: which app should you use?
PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and Apple Wallet apps on an iPhone.

We’re getting closer every day to an entirely cashless society. While some folks may still carry around a few bucks for emergencies, electronic payments are accepted nearly everywhere, and as mobile wallets expand, even traditional credit and debit cards are starting to fall by the wayside.

That means many of us are past the days of tossing a few bills onto the table to pay our share of a restaurant tab or slipping our pal a couple of bucks to help them out. Now, even those things are more easily doable from our smartphones than our physical wallets.

Read more
How to change margins in Google Docs
Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content --- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Read more
What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app
A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Read more