WHAT Did You Say? (Coding for Fun TTS-SAPI Article )

Coding4Fun: Giving Computers a Voice

"Most of us talk to our computers all the time. You wouldn't believe the things my wife says to her poor machine when something goes wrong. This article demonstrates how easy it is to enable managed applications to finally talk back using Microsoft's Speech API (SAPI). But don't worry: since you control what the application says, you can ensure it uses nicer language than my wife.

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One of the best uses of TTS is for audio notifications. ..."

I like the idea of voice audio notifications... Sure we could, and have, used wave files, but that's so static. TTS is dynamic by its very nature. THAT's the cool part.

I have my headphones on all the time, listening to music on my PC, so I have a number of app audio notifications turned on. And I always have to remember what that DING or BOINK or BELL sound means... Then I have to go to the app and see what really happened.

For example, it would be nice if MSN IM would just TELL me who just came online. Getting the "someone just came online" sound does little for me (better than nothing, but still). I don't want to switch mental contexts unless it's someone I've been waiting to have come online, etc, etc, etc...

One point though, is that the voice notification MUST be related to the event causing the notification. Just having a, "You have new mail" voice prompt it worse than a DING. "You have new mail from Bill Gates", now that's cool... :)