Speech for Accessibility Solutions at ATIA Orlando 2011: HumanWare Selects Acapela Group as its Voice Partner

ATIA 2011, ORLANDO, Florida, January 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- HumanWare, the leading provider of intuitive and intelligent solutions for sight impaired users, will integrate text to speech solutions from Acapela Group, the Voice expert, to deliver highly natural speech, in up to 30 languages and 50 voices.

More than any other users, people suffering from disabilities are facing an increasingly technical world. Continuous technological innovations can either exacerbate isolation or, on the contrary, help ease lives through interfaces designed with Accessibility in mind. That's where HumanWare and Acapela expertise comes in.

Products developed by HumanWare help people with disabilities to achieve greater independence and enhance their quality of life by enabling them to accomplish regular daily tasks easily. While Acapela voice solutions, by turning any written information and content into high quality speech, make life simpler and more enjoyable for literally thousands of people.

'With every new day, our customers are facing new challenges that come from living in a world that hasn't been designed with them in mind. These challenges need solutions and we are helping disabled people take control of their lives. Speech is essential in improving the efficiency of our solutions. Users of course require access to high quality speech but also the possibility to choose the voice they will use as a daily companion. Acapela offers both, along with an extensive understanding and knowledge of Accessibility issues, which makes it a natural choice as our partner for voice,' says Gilles Pepin, HumanWare CEO.

'Acapela's mission and strength for decades has been its commitment to listen to the Accessibility community and provide increasingly pertinent solutions to meet people's needs. Our dedication to this principal puts us in an excellent position to work with other industry specialists and help create innovative products that really make a difference. That's why we are very proud to have been selected by a leading player such as HumanWare to voice empower their intelligent solutions and so contribute towards easing the lives of people living with visual or learning disabilities,' says Lars-Erik Larsson, Acapela Group CEO.

Acapela voices will speech empower different solutions from HumanWare, among which are flagship digital talking book players and easy and affordable talking GPS designed for people who are blind or with low vision.

About HumanWare - http://www.humanware.com

HumanWare is the global leader in assistive technologies for the print disabled. HumanWare provides products to people who are blind and have low vision and students with learning disabilities. HumanWare offers a full range of low vision products including the SmartView Synergy desktop video magnifier, the SmartView Pocket and Versa handheld electronic magnifiers, and the myReader2, HumanWare's unique "auto-reader". HumanWare's other innovative products include the BrailleNote Apex, the leading productivity device for the blind in education, business and for personal use; the Victor Reader product line, the world's leading digital audiobook players, and the ClassMate Reader, the only portable book player to offer synchronized text and audio for individuals.

About Acapela Group, http://www.acapela-group.com

Acapela Group, the leading voice expert, invents text to speech solutions to give your content a voice in up to 30 languages. Our speech solutions allow you to turn any written text into natural speech files, using any of our 50 High Quality standard voices or your own synthezised voice talent. Acapela can answer all text to speech needs and provide perfect vocalization whether for voice integration and development, online & on demand use, audio files production, or ready to speak products for personal accessibility use.

Check out http://www.acapela.tv - Acapela Group's sparkling laboratory, http://www.acapela-for-iphone.com to develop talkative apps and http://www.acapela-vaas.com, the Acapela on-line service for smart vocalization.

SOURCE Acapela Group