Cosc 4/5730

Android
Text to Speech
And Speech To Text

Android

TEXT TO SPEECH

Text to Speech
In Android 1.6+ there is a native
Text-to-speech built into the Android
OS.
In 2.3.3, Menu-> Voice input & output->
Text-to-speech settings
In 4.X, Settings-> Language and Input
-> Text-to-speech output
You can use the Listen to an example
to see how it works.

How it works.
The Text-to-Speech (TTS) uses a the
Pico engine
It sends the speech to the audio
output.

There is only one TTS engine and it is

share across all the activities on the
device.
Other activities maybe using it
The user may have overridden the
settings in the preferences as well.

Using the TTS

First we need to check if the TTS
engine is available.
We can do this with a Intent to with
ACTION_CHECK_TTS_DATA
Using startActivityForResult, we then find
out if the TTS engine is working and
avialable.

Android.speech.tts
To use the TTS we need get access to it using
the constructor
TextToSpeech(Context context,
TextToSpeech.OnInitListener listener)
The constructor for the TextToSpeech class.

mTts = mTts = new TextToSpeech(this, this);

First this, use the context of our application
Likely US-EN

Second this, the listener.

Activity implements OnInitListener
@override public void onInit(int status)

OnInitListener
onInit(int status)
Called to signal the completion of the
TextToSpeech engine initialization.
Status is either
TextToSpeech.SUCCESS
You can use it.

or
TextToSpeech.ERROR
Failure, you cant use it.

Using the TTS

To have it speak words
speak(String text, int queueMode,
HashMap<String, String> params)

To stop, call stop()

Shutdown() to release everything

Example
mTts.speak(Test,
TextToSpeech.QUEUE_ADD, null);
You should hear the word test spoken.

Other methods.
You can change the pitch and speech rate
with
setPitch(float pitch)
setSpeechRate(float speechRate)

To find out if it is still speaking

Boolean isSpeaking()

To have the speech written to a file

synthesizeToFile(String text, HashMap<String,
String> params, String filename)
Remember permission for writing to the file system.

Note
In the OnPause() method
You should put at least a stop() call
You app has lost focus

Example code
Txt2spk example in github
Simple text box and button. Type in the
words you want to speak and then press
play.
If you are running the example on a
phone
For fun, use the voice input (microphone on
the keyboard) for the input and then have it
read it back to you.

Android

SPEECH TO TEXT

Speech To Text
Like Text to speech, we are going to call on
another Google's voice recognition software.
Android.speech package
The simple version uses an intent and there is a
dialog box for the users to know when to speech.
RecognizerIntent
With a onActivityResult

A Note speech recognition doesnt work in

the emulators.

Simple version code

First get the recognize intent
Intent intent = new Intent(RecognizerIntent.ACTION_RECOGNIZE_SPEECH);
Specify the calling package to identify your application (this one is generic for
any class you use)
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_CALLING_PACKAGE,
getClass().getPackage().getName());
Display an hint to the user in the dialog box
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_PROMPT, "Say Something!");
Given an hint to the recognizer about what the user is going to say
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL,
RecognizerIntent.LANGUAGE_MODEL_FREE_FORM);
Specify how many results you want to receive. The results will be sorted where
the first result is the one with higher confidence. In this case max of 5 results
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_MAX_RESULTS, 5);
Now launch the activity for a result
startActivityForResult(intent, VOICE_RECOGNITION_REQUEST_CODE);

Simple version code (2)

When the recognition is done, results are returned to onActivityResult
protected void onActivityResult(int requestCode, int resultCode, Intent
data) {
if (requestCode == VOICE_RECOGNITION_REQUEST_CODE &&
resultCode == RESULT_OK) {
Fill the list view with the strings the recognizer thought it could have
heard, there should be at most 5, based on the call
ArrayList<String> matches =
data.getStringArrayListExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_RESULTS);
Now you deal with results in matches array.
}
lastly send other results to the super since we are not dealing with
them.
super.onActivityResult(requestCode, resultCode, data);
}

SpeechRecognizer class
A second version is more complex, but also
removes the dialog box
Which many people want implement their own or
just not have one.

You will need record_audio permission

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO"/>

Get the speech recognizer and a

RecognitionListener
This still uses an intent as well.
Remember the recognition is done by Google's
cloud.

SpeechRecognizer
First get the recognizer
sr =
SpeechRecognizer.createSpeechRecog
nizer(this);
Set your listener.
sr.setRecognitionListener(new
Recognitionlistener());
Listener is on the next slide.

RecognitionListener
create a Recognitionlistener and implement the following methods
void onBeginningOfSpeech()
The user has started to speak.

void onBufferReceived(byte[] buffer)

More sound has been received.

void onEndOfSpeech()
Called after the user stops speaking.

void onError(int error)

A network or recognition error occurred.
Error codes are covered here

void onEvent(int eventType, Bundle params)

Reserved for adding future events.

void onPartialResults(Bundle partialResults)

Called when partial recognition results are available.

void onReadyForSpeech(Bundle params)

Called when the endpointer is ready for the user to start speaking.

void onResults(Bundle results)

Called when recognition results are ready.

void onRmsChanged(float rmsdB)

The sound level in the audio stream has changed.

RecognitionListener (2)
onResults methods
This is where you would pull out the
results from the bundle
ArrayList results =
results.getStringArrayList(SpeechRecogn
izer.RESULTS_RECOGNITION);

Start the recognition

As in the simple version we need an intent to start the
recognition, but we are sending the intent through the
SpeechRecognizer object, we declared in the beginning.
get the recognize intent

Intent intent = new Intent(RecognizerIntent.ACTION_RECOGNIZE_SPEECH);

Specify the calling package to identify your application

intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_CALLING_PACKAGE,getClass().getPa
ckage().getName());
Given an hint to the recognizer about what the user is going to say

intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL,RecognizerInte
nt.LANGUAGE_MODEL_FREE_FORM);
Specified the max number of results

intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_MAX_RESULTS,5);
Use our SpeechRecognizer to send the intent.

sr.startListening(intent);
The listener will now get the results.

Code Examples
The txt2spk will speak text
Speak2Text demo shows you more
information on using other languages
for voice recognition, plus will speak
the results back to you.
speech2txtDemo is simplified voice
recognition
speech2txtDemo2 is uses the
RecognitionListener.

iSpeech
There have SDK and API for blackberry,
android, and iphone as well.
Text to speech
With many voice options as well

Speech to text
Limited to 100 word demo key per application
launch.
License key removes the 100 word limit.

http://www.ispeech.org/

References
http://
developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/
src/com/example/android/apis/app/TextToSpeechActi
vity.html
http://
developer.android.com/reference/android/speech/Sp
eechRecognizer.html
http://
developer.android.com/resources/samples/ApiDemos/
src/com/example/android/apis/app/VoiceRecognition
.html
http://

Q&A