Progress in voice technology means patients with speech impairments can now benefit from improved voice banking; the resulting voices are very like their own. A voice signal and persona can be created from scratch, based on only a few minutes of speech recordings.

My-own-voice online service offers individuals diagnosed with speech or language disorders – resulting from ALS or other conditions such as aphasia, dysarthria or apraxia – the possibility
to create their own digital voice.

Acapela DNN technology represents a major advance in our core technology, it opens the path to a new chapter for my-own-voice, the voice banking solution that offers all patients the possibility
to preserve their voice identity, even if their voice is damaged and low energy levels make recording difficult.

Creating a digital copy of your voice

Users can keep speaking and communicating using not only speech synthesis but their very own voice, which has been synthetically re-created, helping them maintain their identity.

Innovation: Digital voice based on DNN technology

DNN (Deep Neural Networks) have revolutionized artificial vision and automatic speech recognition. This machine learning revolution is keeping its promises as it enters the digital
voice arena. It is leading to better performance, accuracy and consistency.

Acapela Group is actively working on DNN. With Acapela DNN, we can now create a digital version of a person’s voice using only a few minutes of existing recordings (message banking) or new speech recordings (voice banking).

Acapela my-own-voice – the new version

The Acapela DNN engine is a major component of the new version of my-own-voice. The enhanced my-own-voice delivers voices very much like the user’s own. The voice can be used with an assistive device to read any sentence, keeping the essence of the original in terms of timbre, accent and intonation. The voice and way of speaking are instantly recognizable.

My-own-voice including DNN technology is offered in 13 languages: Dutch, Dutch (Belgium), English (Australia), English (UK), English (US), French, French (Canada),
German, Italian, North American Spanish, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish.

Check out the website https://mov.acapela-group.com/

Check out the video made by John Costello, Director of Boston Children’s Hospital’s
Augmentative Communication Program, using and commenting on his own voice created with my-own-voice.

More affordable for the community

Acapela my-own-voice was initially released in 2015. Since then, Acapela has gathered feedback from patients, vendors, clinics and other institutions in order to provide the community with a more affordable and flexible service.

My-own-voice has been improved but the concept remains the same. Each patient is able to create a voice to test online through a type&talk demo. The voice, once purchased, can be used in Windows and Android (both as a system voice) or iOS (bundled with an application).

About Acapela Inclusive

In order to meet a growing demand for specific voice solutions adapted to accessibility markets, Acapela Group has created a division dedicated to inclusiveness with an initial
specific focus on speech impairments, learning disabilities, visual impairments and meeting the needs of seniors.

Acapela Inclusive aims to provide everyone, whatever their disability or impairment, with a voice, to help them live more independently through easy access to technology.

Press contact: press@acapela-group.com

In order to meet growing demands for specific voice solutions adapted to Accessibility markets, Acapela Group is creating a division dedicated to Inclusiveness with an initial specific focus on speech impairments, learning disabilities, visual impairments and meeting the needs of seniors.

Acapela Inclusive aims to provide everyone, whatever their disability or impairment, with a voice, to help them live more independently through easy access to technology.

Acapela has been inventing speech solutions for 30 years to provide users with access to information, to enable communication, to give people a voice to express their thoughts and desires, to help users participate in social conversation, preserve their personal voice identity, thrive in their educational aims, and much more. Acapela voices can either speak or read content, in 34 languages. Acapela creates authentic voices that express meaning and intent, with emotions and moods, for all ages, for children, women and men. Over 100 voices are ready to speak, producing a natural and pleasant audio result.

‘Our company has been present for decades in the Accessibility market, helping users live and succeed in their everyday environments. We have established strong relationships with the whole community – including partners, institutions, customers, distributors, end users- and our voices ease the daily life of thousands of people around the world. Our expertise, the ongoing ground- breaking innovations in the voice area and our capability to create voices for everyone in new ways means we are in an optimal position to create original, dynamic solutions for all end users of all ages, from kids to seniors’, says Nicolas Mazars, who is heading the new Business Unit.

Acapela is proud of its unique voice track of children’s voices which allows young speech impaired users around the world to express their thoughts and desires with a voice that reflects their age. Our voices enable visually impaired users to access content with the same ease as sighted users through programmes which have been ambitious and challenging to create and implement. With my-own-voice, people about to lose their voice can preserve it as a synthetic copy. And last but not least, the latest innovations with DNN and Deep Learning are opening the way to new opportunities.

For more information: http://www.acapela-group.com/acapela-inclusive