Who uses Text-To-Speech?
TTS is used in a wide variety of services and applications. Commercially, help desks and voice response systems are probably the most important. On nights and weekends, when people are scarce, customers can still get some basic information from computers, for example, an account balance. The computer listens either to speech or touch tones and responds with TTS. These apps are typically over the telephone but might also be at kiosks or automated tellers. TTS is also used on personal devices, e.g. on a PC to proof-read a document or to learn a new language. This category also includes assistive technologies such as screen-readers for the visually impaired and as a substitute voice for those who cannot speak. As the quality of synthetic voices continues to improve, barriers to new applications drop. Some applications, to guarantee high quality, record all the things that need to be said. This can be expensive, impractical, or impossible depending on the task. TTS is often a better option
