ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

A new Feature in Mac OS X Lion will allow users to select text and convert it into an audio file. This feature will work with any text that can be highlighted. In order to convert text into an audio file right click on the selected text and click on add to iTunes as a spoken track. Then a window will appear that allows you to select the voice and name of the audio file. The feature is available in Snow Leopard but is not enabled by default. Kurzweil also has a similar feature where you can covert text an audio. There is also a speech feature in Snow Leopard and iOS 5 beta. The speech feature allows selected text to be spoken aloud by a computerized voice. To start the speech feature select the text and right click then click on speech. Mac OS X Lion will be released in July and iOS 5 will be released in the Fall.