With the introduction of Siri, Cortana, Alexa and other voice based personal assistants; communicating with computers using voice has become the order of the day. Voice communication also makes things more intuitive and definitely cooler. People have been using various versions of electronic speech synthesis since the 1950’s and it has come a long way since our Founder, Gene Frantz helped develop the Speak & Spell, utilizing the first single-chip voice synthesizer. However, the most famous Text-to-Speech (TTS) synthesizer was used by the great scientist, Stephen Hawking, starting in the late 1980’s as a result of degradation of his natural abilities from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Dr Hawking’s synthesizer went silent this month, and the scientific community for speech synthesis and many other areas are grateful for his tremendous contributions.
Since TTS technology has matured, many resources are available including open source libraries like eSpeak and Flite that can be easily incorporated into projects. This article helps you install and use TTS synthesizers for any board using the OSD335x family.
Biometric Door Opener Project Using BeagleBone Black Wireless with Facial Recognition
Ever since I was a child, I have loved building things and getting my hands dirty. Whether it was fixing my dad’s car, playing with electric motors, or writing code, I enjoy the satisfaction of seeing a problem and working to a solution. Actually building hands-on projects is a stress relief for me. When I was in school I was always looking for ways to take the theory I learned in class and put it into action.
Now that I am at Octavo Systems I like to do the same thing. The tools available to designers have come a long way. I am amazed at how easy it is to take an idea from the drawing board to a functioning prototype. The OSD335x System-In-Package on the BeagleBone® Black Wireless is a perfect example of these tools. (Read More…)
It is Feb 2nd, Groundhog day. Each year I like to watch the 1993 classic Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. In it, Murray gets stuck reliving the same day over and over again until he finally “gets it right”. The movie will make you laugh and cry. I highly recommend it.
However, this isn’t meant to be a movie review. I bring it up because I see parallels between Murray’s problem, reliving the same day over again, and a common complaint we hear from our customers. No matter how hard they try they always seem to be stuck having to redo the same design tasks over and over again! (Read More…)
Industry analysts predict billions of things will connect to the Internet by 20201. Whether it is your fitness tracker or a smart fridge, we are now able track, analyze and make healthier choices to improve our lives. We are able to make our homes more secure and energy efficient. Soon we will watch Netflix in self-driving vehicles on our way to work. Due to the potential and the ability to personalize information, the industry has pursued connecting all devices to the Internet with passion. Therefore, it is a given that your marketing department will come in asking you to update your product with IoT capabilities.
How Octavo Systems Helps Your IoT Design
Octavo Systems is leading the hardware effort to make IoT system development more accessible to everyone. Through System-in-Package (SiP) technology, it is possible to embed complex and powerful systems into tiny spaces while saving valuable time to market and cost.
