iPad gives comedian with cerebral palsy a voice

Since the iPad stormed the world, it has been hailed as a revolutionary device that has the power to transform lives. While the critics may say this mostly hype, we think we can all agree that it is really amazing when a piece of technology can enable a person to do something they could not have otherwise accomplished without it.

Lee “Lost Voice Guy” Ridley has cerebral palsy and lost his voice as a child due to complications at birth. Although unable to speak, he has a unique and hilarious view of the world that he is now able to convey to an audience thanks to his iPad and a $2 app.

By using Speak it!, a natural sounding text to speech app for iOS, Ridley was able to make his stand-up comedy debut. As you can see in the video below, Ridley is able to substitute the iPad speech for his voice while still augmenting his performance with his body language. The Speak it! Text to Speech app by Future Apps Inc. includes four high quality voices that sound less robotic than traditional text to speech programs, making it a viable option for an entertainment performance.

Speak it! has the ability to read text on the fly, copy and paste text from a variety of sources, and even save spoken audio files for future playback. It is also localized for French, Italian, German, and Spanish and offers the option to purchase additional voices.

For Ridley, we can only imagine that $1.99 is a small price to pay to be able to pursue a dream that once must have seemed impossible.



Speak it! [App Store Link]

source: Electronista