Stony Brook, New York – November 5, 2014 – Charmtech Labs LLC today released Capti Narrator v1.7 for iOS, dropping its price from $19.99 to $0! Capti is the most comprehensive productivity tool for listening to digital content such as news, blogs, DRM-free e-books, and documents from the Browser, Dropbox, Google Drive, Instapaper, Clipboard, and now also Pocket and Bookshare. Capti also added 10 new premium synthetic voices and the support of desktop browsers via Bookmarklet. A sneak-peak version of Capti Desktop v0.9 for the Firefox browser running on Windows and Mac computers is also available for preview (captivoice.com).
Capti v1.7 adds integration with Pocket (a.k.a. “Read It Later” – www.getpocket.com), the world’s leading save-for-later service, which has more than 12 million registered users and is integrated into more than 500 apps. Capti enables anyone with a Pocket account to import content and listen to it with Capti on the go or while relaxing. “Save-for-later lists quickly fill up with content that you did not have time to read when you added it, and probably will not have time to read later.” said Dr. Yevgen Borodin, President and CEO of Charmtech Labs LLC,
“With Capti, on the other hand, you can catch up with reading in the gym, in the car, on the plane, you name it.”
Capti also adds integration with Bookshare® (www.bookshare.org), the world’s largest accessible online library for people with print disabilities. More than 320,000 people in nearly 50 countries have access to Bookshare’s collection of over 300,000 titles. Anyone with a Bookshare account can now add books, periodicals, and other reading materials to Capti Playlist, and listen to them narrated with high quality synthetic text-to-speech voices.
Capti Narrator for iOS has been translated to 10 major languages but it can speak in 26 languages, using some 160 voices, which include premium quality voices from IVONA, NeoSepeech and Acapela. This release expands the extensive collection of adult voices with Indian English (Raveena), Turkish (Filiz), Swedish (Astrid), Portuguese (Cristiano), and German (Julia). Capti automatically detects the language of the added content and narrates it with a voice in the corresponding language, making the listening experience seamless for bilingual users and language learners. Also, in addition to the American English child voices (Ivy, Kenny, and Nelly), this release also adds new child voices speaking with British English accent (Harry and Rosie) and American English accent (Ella and Josh). “Try these voices risk-free, and see how much your children will enjoy listening to stories or their reading assignments narrated by other kids,” said Dr. Borodin, “While you are at it, you may also discover that Capti can be very useful for listening to your own content instead of reading it from the screen.”
Capti Narrator was revealed at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and has been made available on the App Store worldwide. Being a valuable tool for people with vision impairments, dyslexia, and other print disabilities, and in recognition of the commitment to universal accessibility, Capti was distinguished with the FCC Chairman’s Award for Advancing Accessibility in the category of Mobile Web Browsers. Capti Narrator also received the Delegates’ Award in the Web Accessibility Challenge at the International 2014 Web for All Conference in Seoul, Korea.
About Charmtech Labs LLC:
Charmtech Labs LLC was founded by a group of computer science professors and Ph.D. students who wanted to go beyond academic research and make a difference in the real world. Armed with years of cutting-edge research and software-development experience, they set out to remove barriers between people and information. Initially inspired by helping people with vision impairments to overcome information accessibility problems, they are now bringing their screen-reading technology to the mainstream market. Their flagship product, Capti Narrator, revolutionizes the way people consume digital content. For more information see www.captivoice.com.
Capti has been developed, in part, with support from the Department of Education, using the NIDRR grant number H133S110023. However, the contents do not represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.
Use Cases
Usable literally by anyone, Capti exemplifies the vision of universal accessibility: “usable
to the maximum extent possible by everyone regardless of their age, ability, or circumstance.”
· People without disabilities can use Capti to multitask and listen to content while walking,
cooking, eating, watching kids, during the commute, in the gym, on the plane, or on the couch.
· Students can use Capti to keep up with their reading materials while commuting or exercising,
thus reducing the strain on their eyes and their overall physical health.
· Language learners can improve their reading and comprehension skills by listening
to the content that is interesting to them, choosing the voices and the speech rate they follow.
· Older adults can enjoy simplified access to the Web and use a convenient playlist interface
for consuming content in audio-visual form, without straining their eyes.
· People with cognitive disabilities, e.g., dyslexia and autism can look at the screen
and listen to content at the same time (coming soon to iOS), which enhances comprehension.
· People with low vision benefit from the ability to listen to content instead of struggling
to see with magnification, which they can use conveniently as well.
· Blind people can enhance their productivity finding information quicker in webpages
and listening to content without constantly interacting with screen readers.
· While deaf people cannot benefit from audio narration, they can use Capti for visual reading,
and use Capti Playlist for organizing their content that they want to read later.
Features
Connected
Get content from the Browser, Clipboard,
Pocket, Dropbox, Google Drive, and more
Organized
Use the Playlist to organize your content,
save it for later or listen to it right away
Focused
Listen only to the main content in webpages, skipping ads, menus, and other clutter
Visual
View the content directly in your Playlist,
and read along with Capti if you want
Intelligent
Capti will reassemble the articles that
are spread across multiple webpages
Accessible
Capti for iOS works seamlessly
with VoiceOver screen-reader
Liberating
Listen to e-books, documents, and web pages, instead of reading them from the screen
Ubiquitous
Listen on Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch; sync your Playlist and continue from the same spot
Mobile
Listen on the road, on the plane, in the gym,
on a walk, even when you are offline
Personalized
Choose from over 150 beautiful voices speaking in 26 languages, and set your preferred speech rate
Versatile
Listen to content in PDF, EPUB, HTML, DAISY, TXT, DOC, PPT, RTF, ODT, and other formats
Social
Share content with your friends on
Facebook, Twitter, via Email or SMS
About the CEO
Dr. Yevgen Borodin is the President and CEO of Charmtech Labs LLC, a company he co-founded to remove barriers between people and information. Initially inspired by helping people with vision impairments to overcome information accessibility problems, he is now bringing screen-reading technology to the mainstream market. Charmtech’s flagship product, Capti Narrator, enables convenient hands-free consumption of digital content via audio (www.captivoice.com).
Dr. Borodin is well known for his research on making computers more accessible to people. He is the recipient
of almost $4M dollars in U.S. federal research grants to support his research. He has co-authored over 40 publications on various aspects of web accessibility, and received several best paper and other awards. Dr. Borodin has been recently recognized for his innovation and entrepreneurial accomplishments by the LaunchPad’s Launch Your Stars Award.
Dr. Borodin is very active in the human-computer interaction and assistive technology communities. He has given numerous talks at international conferences and was recently an invited speaker at the FCC. He served on organizing and program committees for various research conferences and journals, and he is currently on the steering committee of the International Web for All Conference. A member of the ACM, IEEE, and SigmaXi, he also serves as a Research Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stony Brook University, where he is supervising research of several Ph.D. and M.S. students.
Dr. Borodin has earned his A.S. and BTech degrees from Alfred State College of Technology and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Stony Brook University. He defended his Ph.D. dissertation “Bridging the Web Accessibility Divide” at Stony Brook University, receiving the President’s Award for Distinguished Doctoral Students (2010). He was also the 1st place winner of the 2007 ACM International Graduate Student Research Competition.