March 28, 2024

Vocalyze Text-to-Speech Gets Your News and Twitter Feeds Talking

Vocalyze logo-Gray parrot with orange beak and face on orange backgroundVocalyze is a mobile audio news and entertainment service that turns news, tweets, and other web content into a real-time podcast stream using high quality text-to-speech. Vocalyze can read news from a wide range of sources including blogs, news, weather, and other information sites and even read tweets from any twitter user. It is easy to create a custom audio program featuring the news from or about the people, companies, newspapers, teams, or magazines you care about most.

Instead of actively reading content with a screen reader, Vocalyze streams audio of news stories, tweets, or other text posted online in a continuous, customizable app, like a personal news radio station. No synchronization or downloading is required. “Vocalyze helps people to be more productive,” says Frank Qiu, Vocalyze Media CEO. “During our beta period we have seen the average user spend 37 minutes per visit listening to content they wouldn’t otherwise have read or known about.”

Vocalyze reads your selected content aloud using text-to-speech voices that will be familiar to most screen reader users. You can listen on the web or via free iPhone, iPad, or Android apps. The iPhone and iPad apps are completely accessible using VoiceOver. All of the buttons and controls which operate the app are properly voiced. The Android app is also accessible depending on your specific configuration. Although both apps lack the speed and navigational controls that most screen reader users are accustomed to, the ability to stream content from a wide variety of sources is well worth the free download.

Vocalyze also provides a plug-in which can be used to bring streaming audio text-to-speech to WordPress and other web sites. You can give this a try on BlindGadget.com by clicking on the “Listen to BlindGadget” link at the top of the page. Give Vocalyze a try, then leave a comment and let us know what you think.