Self-voicing

A self-voicing application is an application that provides an aural interface without requiring a separate screen reader. Self-voicing applications can be an important form of assistive technology, useful to those who have difficulty reading or seeing.

A prominent group of self-voicing applications are talking web browsers. Traditionally, talking web browsers have been specially created, as was the case with:

• pwWebSpeak, originally developed by The Productivity Works in Princeton, New Jersey (now obsolete)^{[citation needed]}
• Simply Web (also now obsolete)^{[citation needed]}
• Home Page Reader (HPR) from IBM (recently discontinued)^{[citation needed]}
• Connect Outloud from Freedom Scientific^[1]
• WebAnywhere from University of Washington^[2]

A more recent trend has seen the self-voicing capabilities added to mainstream web browsers with free add-ons. In 2004, Opera Software created a self-voicing and speech-recognition extension for the Windows version of their web browser.^[3] And in 2005 Charles L. Chen devised Fire Vox, an extension that adds speech capabilities to the Mozilla Firefox web browser on Mac, Windows, or Linux.^[4]

A second important category are broader self-voicing applications that function as what T. V. Raman calls "complete audio desktops",^[5] including editing, browsing, and even gaming capabilities. These include Raman's own Emacspeak enhancement for Emacs.