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{"id":952,"date":"2024-04-05T05:35:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-05T05:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/microsofts-neural-voice-tool-for-people-with-speech-disabilities-arrives-later-this-year-161550277\/"},"modified":"2024-04-05T05:35:17","modified_gmt":"2024-04-05T05:35:17","slug":"microsofts-neural-voice-tool-for-people-with-speech-disabilities-arrives-later-this-year-161550277","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aitesonics.com\/microsofts-neural-voice-tool-for-people-with-speech-disabilities-arrives-later-this-year-161550277\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft’s neural voice tool for people with speech disabilities arrives later this year"},"content":{"rendered":"

The company is also previewing a feature called \u201cSpeak For Me,\u201d which is coming later this year. Much like Apple\u2019s Personal Voice<\/a>, Speak For Me can help those with ALS and other speech disabilities to use custom neural voices<\/a> to communicate. Work on this project has been ongoing \u201cfor some time\u201d with partners like the non-profit ALS organization Team Gleason<\/a>, and Microsoft said it\u2019s \u201ccommitted to making sure this technology is used for good and plan to launch later in the year.\u201d The company also shared that it\u2019s working with Answer ALS and ALS Therapy Development Institute (TDI) to \u201calmost double the clinical and genomic data available for research.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most significant accessibility updates coming this month is that Copilot will have new accessibility skills<\/a> that enable users to ask the assistant to launch Live Caption and Narrator, among other assistive tools. The Accessibility Assistant feature announced last year<\/a> will be available today in the Insider preview for M365 apps like Word, with the company saying it will be coming \u201csoon\u201d to Outlook and PowerPoint. Microsoft is also publishing four new playbooks today, including a Mental Health toolkit, which covers \u201ctips for product makers to build experiences that support mental health conditions, created in partnership [with] Mental Health America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the summit, the company\u2019s chief accessibility officer Jenny Lay-Flurrie spoke with Engadget to share greater insight around the news as well as her thoughts on generative AI\u2019s role in building assistive products.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn many ways, AI isn\u2019t new,\u201d she said, adding \u201cthis chapter is new.\u201d Generative AI may be all the rage right now, but Lay-Flurrie believes that the core principle her team relies on hasn\u2019t changed. \u201cResponsible AI is accessible AI,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Still, generative AI could bring many benefits. \u201cThis chapter, though, does unlock some potential opportunities for the accessibility industry and people with disabilities to be able to be more productive and to use technology to power their day,\u201d she said. She highlighted a survey the company did with the neurodiverse community around Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the response of the few hundred people who responded was \u201cthis is reducing time for me to create content and it\u2019s shortening that gap between thought and action,\u201d Lay-Flurrie said.<\/p>\n

The idea of being responsible in embracing new technology trends when designing for accessibility isn\u2019t far from Lay-Flurrie\u2019s mind. \u201cWe still need to be very principled, thoughtful and if we hold back, it\u2019s to make sure that we are protecting those fundamental rights of accessibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere at the summit, Microsoft is featuring guest speakers like actor Michelle Williams and its own employee Katy Jo Wright, discussing mental health and their experience living with chronic Lyme disease respectively. We will also see Amsterdam\u2019s Rijksmusem share how it<\/a> used Azure AI\u2019s computer vision and generative AI to provide image descriptions for over a million pieces of art for visitors who are blind or have low vision.<\/p>\n

This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"