IBM Watson Voices Will No Longer Be Available

Unfortunately IBM Watson voices will no longer be available.  We have been able to provide these voices to you for free by call IBM's cloud API via their TTS demo page.  However, this goes against their terms of service, and today we can no longer do so.

IBM Watson voices use deep-learning technology to provide high quality, life-like synthetic speech.  This requires a significant amount of processing power from their cloud infrastructure, and for this reason they charge a fee for the use of their TTS API.  This fee is too high to be practical for Read Aloud's document-reading purposes.

If you were using these voices, please switch to different voice provider.

It would be nice if we're able to use these high-quality TTS voices for general document reading purposes.  And we will be in the future, as this technology become commoditized.  But in the meantime, we'll have to make do with the older generation voices that sound robotic.

Edit: for a reliable (though not very high quality) voice that works offline, please install this extension https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/us-english-female-text-to/pkidpnnapnfgjhfhkpmjpbckkbaodldb.  After installing, the voice will appear in the voice list as "US English Female TTS (by Google)".

109 comments:

  1. UnknownMay 11, 2020 at 3:56 PM

    Come on dude

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMay 11, 2020 at 5:19 PM

    unfortunate

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMay 11, 2020 at 7:41 PM

    aw

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownMay 11, 2020 at 8:51 PM

    REALLY

    ReplyDelete
  5. Will VirellaMay 12, 2020 at 4:08 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Will VirellaMay 12, 2020 at 4:20 AM

    Sad and disappointed.

    ReplyDelete
  7. 50-1-50May 12, 2020 at 6:18 AM

    I'd be willing to make a nominal donation to help out. I have reading "dysfunction" and this TTS Program help quite a bit. If you start a donation page please let me know.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownMay 12, 2020 at 8:03 AM

    she sould like a homless robot

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownMay 12, 2020 at 8:05 AM

    Are there any extensions that do support the IBM voices?

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownMay 12, 2020 at 9:30 AM

    come on dude really!! UGH

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousMay 12, 2020 at 4:47 PM

    this is not what i wanted

    ReplyDelete
  12. Claudinei FelipeMay 12, 2020 at 7:56 PM

    Sad ... You guys at IBM together with your APP are the best.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Claudinei FelipeMay 12, 2020 at 8:26 PM

    If I create a Watson TTS account can I integrate with ReadAloud?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Holy CowMay 15, 2020 at 8:04 PM

      Yes, you can do that in version 1.31.0. However, IBM free tier includes only 10,000 characters. After that it costs a lot ($20/million chars)! This is because they're intended for commercial use, not consumer use.

      Delete
  14. UnknownMay 12, 2020 at 10:52 PM

    This has been an amazing app to listen to articles as I am not a native speaker this helps my pronunciation while being updated.
    I hope you could continue.

    ReplyDelete
  15. MubashirullahMay 13, 2020 at 4:12 AM

    I am sure there is some open source ones out there. I understand the cost and it totally makes sense not to use it.

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousMay 13, 2020 at 6:42 AM

    Why? I was using it for school and this happened? Unacceptable!

    ReplyDelete
  17. UnknownMay 13, 2020 at 9:04 AM

    The IBM Watson service allows for users to create a free plan which might help mitigate some concerns above:

    https://cloud.ibm.com/catalog/services/text-to-speech - 10,000 characters per month
    https://cloud.ibm.com/catalog/services/speech-to-text - 500 free min a month for speech to text

    ReplyDelete
  18. UnknownMay 13, 2020 at 9:19 AM

    ReadAloud, can you guys let us link our free IBM accounts to your extension?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Holy CowMay 15, 2020 at 8:13 PM

      Yes, you can do so in version 1.31.0. But please be careful of overrunning the limited free tier.

      Delete
  19. German Attanasio RuizMay 13, 2020 at 9:31 AM

    Hey, I'm the guy that works at IBM and reported the "terms of use" issue.

    I think we can work on a solution here were each users gets its own account and inputs the apikey in the browser extension.
    The free plan will allow for 10.000 characters a month which is ~2000 words. Users can also switch their instance to be in a standard plan which would charge depending on usage.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Claudinei FelipeMay 13, 2020 at 9:59 PM

      We hope that you at IBM can add to this APP that helps us so much, thank you!

      Delete
  20. RobMay 15, 2020 at 8:28 AM

    Sad, but understandable. I would be happy to pay a small subscription to keep the IBM Watson voice, if that is ever a possibility. I'm sure others would be interested in this as well?

    Thanks for having developed such a nice TTS application, it has really increased my productivity in work.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Claudinei FelipeJune 18, 2020 at 7:21 PM

    Any solution for IBM Watson?

    ReplyDelete
  22. {~HufflePuffle~}October 22, 2020 at 1:01 PM

    hello people

    ReplyDelete
  23. {~HufflePuffle~}October 22, 2020 at 1:04 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
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  24. UnknownNovember 12, 2020 at 10:00 AM

    horrible

    ReplyDelete
  25. UnknownNovember 13, 2020 at 6:56 AM

    can't stand it

    ReplyDelete
  26. UnknownNovember 23, 2020 at 8:53 AM

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  27. UnknownNovember 30, 2020 at 10:27 AM

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  28. AnonymousDecember 1, 2020 at 9:59 AM

    lol

    ReplyDelete
  29. UnknownDecember 4, 2020 at 9:13 AM

    ur a boomer

    ReplyDelete
  30. UnknownDecember 4, 2020 at 9:15 AM

    mother fucker

    ReplyDelete
  31. UnknownDecember 6, 2020 at 6:21 PM

    it won't read out to me

    ReplyDelete
  32. UnknownDecember 6, 2020 at 6:22 PM

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  33. UnknownDecember 15, 2020 at 8:21 AM

    looking a you tube video

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    hi

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    what

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  36. Hãy Sống Tốt HơnJanuary 12, 2021 at 8:13 PM

    I want to know how to adjust text speed
    And if you can, please choose the option to download the text file
    I really appreciate your knitting application

    ReplyDelete
  37. UnknownJanuary 14, 2021 at 3:01 PM

    yhuh

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  38. UnknownJanuary 14, 2021 at 3:03 PM

    kristin

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    mhmm

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  40. UnknownJanuary 20, 2021 at 12:21 PM

    Uh....... how old is this? This text is from 2021.......

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    ...
    Wait, it says the date .-. my bad.

    ReplyDelete
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  51. {~HufflePuffle~}April 23, 2021 at 2:04 PM

    i like it but it has issues sometimes

    ReplyDelete
  52. {~HufflePuffle~}April 23, 2021 at 2:05 PM

    also im talking about read aloud

    ReplyDelete
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  56. UnknownMay 25, 2021 at 10:21 AM

    why do you talk so much?

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  57. UnknownJanuary 20, 2022 at 3:04 AM

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  58. odonovjJanuary 25, 2022 at 4:01 AM

    Can we at least have faith in the grammar being used
    "become commoditized" ,should be "becomes commoditized"

    ReplyDelete
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