Unique software for speech impaired

Voice-over

Any speech impaired person knowing Tamil or Kannada can load the software, type the sentences in Tamil or Kannada and hear a human voice speak out what he/she wishes to convey.

Such a conversion software is available only for Hindi at present.
“We have tried to bring it as close to the human voice as possible,” said Prof A G Ramakrishan, Department of Electrical Engineering, IISC, in a paper presented on the new software at the World Classical Tamil Conference (WCTC) here on Saturday.

Two aspects
The ‘Tirukural’ software combines two different aspects–online recognition of handwriting (OHR) and conversion of text to speech (TTS).
The TTS takes Unicode text and produces natural and intelligible speech in the two languages.

The user can write one sentence at a time on the screen using the stylus. And then click the button “speak”.
And a human voice will read out the text in chaste Tamil.
The software will be tested in a private hospital in Bangalore, before it is formally launched.

Odd one out
An IISC alumni who did his MSc. in Internal Combustion Engine (by research) and a delegate to the World Classical Tamil Conference, A Kannappan, found himself at his wit’s end when his paper in Tamil exploring parallels to the Big Bang theory that scientifically explains the universe’s origin in Tamil saint-poet Manickavasagar’s ‘Thiruvasagam’, was included under a totally unrelated header.

Kannappan, a technocrat who now runs a small scale industry in Sweden and the only delegate to the conclave from that country, had titled his paper as “Podu Nadanam” meaning “Dance of Nature” and intended it to be a serious one on Science and Tamil. But somehow, the World Classical Tamil Conference Academic Committee had mistakenly clubbed his paper with those presented on Folk Arts. This could be because “Nadanam” means dance in Tamil.

“It was too late to correct the mistake by the time I reached here,” rued Kannappan.
“My paper was accepted, but I had to present it at a wrong fora where people could not critically respond or appreciate my effort,” Kannappan said, wondering how this goof-up took place in an otherwise “very well organised and ambitious conference”.
DH News Service