Baldi’s on the iPhone!

Baldi®, a computer-animated talking character, has been around for several decades in research, tutoring deaf and hard of hearing children, serving as a language teacher for autistic kids, and instructing children and adults in learning how to speak new languages. Baldi has an underlying three-dimensional wireframe model that is controlled analogously to a puppet on a set of strings. Baldi provides realistic visible speech that is almost as accurate as a natural speaker. His primary residence was first huge expensive computers and then run-of-the-mill desktops. Now Baldi is making an appearance on the iPhone. Baldi on your iPhone or iPod Touch can recite Web pages, RSS feeds, books and articles, and personal text files. His rate of speaking, facial look, and emotion can be directly controlled. The user can take their personal content with them and enjoy Baldi offline—i.e., no internet connection is necessary.

The iPhone application also provides a continuously available platform to practice learning new speech cues that can improve intelligibility for deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Baldi is able to give facial and other visual cues to make the message more understandable for deaf and hard of hearing persons and all of us in difficult hearing places. The visual speech cues on the iPhone will be identical to those used in the researchers’ project on iGlasses. This technology built into eyeglasses will improve speech understanding in face-to-face communication. These iGlasses convert audible speech to cues visible only to the wearer, appearing in his or her peripheral vision. The microphones, color LEDs (light-emitting diodes), and supporting electronics will be integrated into a contemporary eyeglass frame that can be easily designed to fashionable. With this affordable supplement, wearers will be able to communicate easily in face-to-face and classroom situations and thereby achieve goals that were previously out of reach.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/animated-speech-corporation/id340888074