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CLEMMONS, NC - One of the most popular products in the NextUp.com software
line, TextAloud continues to find rapidly growing popularity among the blind
and visually impaired for its ease of use and superb voice quality. Most
recently, famed blind musician, producer, and radio personality Joey Stuckey
has discovered TextAloud, and is now an official and enthusiastic endorser.
"We're delighted to have the endorsement of Joey Stuckey, who is one of the
Southeast's most famous and remarkable people," comments Rick Ellis, President
of NextUp.com. "His use of TextAloud software, as well as NewsAloud and
WeatherAloud, is an example of just how easy and useful our software products
can be for those who are blind, or who are battling some form of visual disability."
TextAloud seamlessly converts text into spoken audio for listening on a laptop
or desktop PC, and which can also save text to audio files for playback on
portables like the iPod (R), PocketPC (R), and a wide range of other players
and devices. Simple to use for anyone with a PC, TextAloud is inexpensive
and affordable, with an array of terrific, natural-sounding voices also available.
It's no wonder that TextAloud has already proven enormously popular with
the blind and visually impaired, who too often face robotic voices and monotones
when desiring to listen to books or articles read aloud.
"Stuckey himself is a successful blind guitarist, songwriter, singer, composer,
producer, radio personality, teacher, and sound engineer, who in April 2006
was also appointed the official Ambassador of Music for Macon, Georgia by
its mayor and city council. He lost his sight and sense of smell as an infant
as the result of a brain tumor, yet remained in mainstream education and
actually graduated from high school at age 14. By the age of 17, while
attending classes at Mercer University, he began his musical career by taking
classical guitar lessons from noted music professor Terry Cantwell, and he
had found his calling. Joey is now an award-winning musician, producer and
entrepreneur in his own right, and he was delighted when he discovered the
ease and value of NextUp's TextAloud.
"I was very impressed with TextAloud -- most especially with the quality of
its voices," Stuckey comments. "I have a screen reader designed for the blind
that I have to use for more advanced applications, but honestly the sound
is just the pits. I read several eBooks per week, and if I want to read
for pleasure, then I only use TextAloud!"
While it cannot replace high-end screen readers (as those offer the added
ability to navigate menus, toolbars, and more) TextAloud is a superb and
affordable addition to the blind person's arsenal of tools and products
(and is quite accessible for the blind if used in tandem with a minimum
of JFW 5.1 or higher). Stuckey adds, "Every blind person should have
TextAloud on their computer -- the quality of the pronunciation, combined
with the excellent audio quality, and the very human-sounding voices, make
TextAloud the only choice for reading Word, PDF, web, and other text documents."
Stuckey also values TextAloud's ability to export documents, books, or other
text in specific TextAloud voices, to audio files. "It's a great tool for
sighted people that have blind folks as friends or family," he adds. "For
example, you might use TextAloud to send an audio file of a letter you wrote
to a blind friend -- or you can record an eBook to CD for the listening
enjoyment of a family member in a hospital or nursing home."
Stuckey's favorite voice for use with TextAloud is "Mike," from AT&T Natural
Voices (TM). "The voice quality is heaven -- simply remarkable," he comments.
"It allows me to listen to something I have written, like an article or a
blog post, with a more human voice. It's something that is very useful
when trying to think about how it will flow when someone else reads the
final version. It's even helpful for when I write radio spots, as it lets
me get a feel for how it will sound with the voice talent as well!"
In addition to use on his laptop and desktop computers, Stuckey uses TextAloud
on his iPod in order to learn song lyrics, as well as to assist him in memorizing
outlines for his public speaking appearances. "I just get the info in a
document, save it to an audio file and then take it on the road," he adds.
Stuckey also uses NextUp's WeatherAloud for his daily weather reports, and
NewsAloud to catch up on the day's headlines.
About Joey Stuckey
With four successful albums to his credit, Joey Stuckey (www.Joeystuckey.com)
operates an acclaimed digital recording facility, Shadow Sound Studio, and
has hosted three radio programs dedicated to preserving and promoting Georgia
music. He currently owns and operates a 24-hour internet radio station, WTMT,
and is also heard weekly on Massachusetts-based "Engage Internet Radio," on
his popular audio music magazine "Audio Style." He has been featured in PRI's
"The World", GPB's "Georgia Gazette", and "Big Takeover Magazine," and has
received such honors as Recording Artist of the Year (1999) from The Atlanta
Society of Entertainers, as well as the Little Jimmy Dempsey Award for Musical
Excellence (2000, 2005), and the Jazz Artist of the Year in 2001, 2002, 2003,
2004, and 2005. He won the Cotton Carrier Award in 2000 from the Atlanta
Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as the 2004 Reader's Choice Award in
Eleventh Hour Magazine for Best Singer/Songwriter. In April 2006, Joey was
appointed the official Ambassador of Music for Macon, Georgia by its mayor
and city council.
Stuckey and his band have opened for legendary artists including Ted Nugent,
Bad Company, Trisha Yearwood, James Brown, the B-52's, and Smashmouth. In
his other roles as producer, composer, sound engineer or hired musician,
Stuckey has worked with such greats as Trisha Yearwood, Carole King, Chris
Hillman, Jimmy Hall, Charlie Daniels, George McCorkle, Razzy Bailey, and
actor Ron Lester. Stuckey is currently working on his debut jazz album,
entitled "Sneakin'," as well as his country album, "Welcome to Stuckey Country:
Population You."
About TextAloud
TextAloud has been featured in The New York Times, PC Magazine, Writer's Digest,
on CNN, and more. Hailed by critics and users alike, TextAloud is priced at
just $29.95, and is compatible with systems using Windows (R) 98, NT, 2000,
XP and VISTA. The program is available for fast, safe and secure purchase
via http://www.nextup.com/purchase.html.
NextUp.com also offers TextAloud with optional premium voices from AT&T Natural Voices (TM),
NeoSpeech (R), Nuance (R), Acapela (R) and Cepstral (R) for the most natural-sounding
computer speech anywhere. Available languages include US English, UK English, Indian
Accent English, Scottish Accent English, French, Canadian French, Latin American Spanish,
Castilian (European) Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese,
Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Korean, Japanese, German, Italian, Dutch,
Belgian Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Arabic.
About NextUp.com
NextUp.com, a division of NextUp Technologies, LLC, provides
award-winning Text to Speech software for consumers, business customers,
educators, and those with visual or vocal impairment, or learning
disabilities.
In addition to TextAloud, NextUp.com markets other innovative Windows software
designed to save time and deliver vital information. NewsAloud™ is a talking
personal "news agent" that finds the stories users want, and then reads them
aloud or to portable audio files. WeatherAloud™ is a weather application
that lets users select and listen to personalized weather forecasts, while
StocksAloud™ reads stock updates and related news headlines aloud for specific
companies of interest. NextUp Talker is an easy and affordable program that
allows people who have lost their voices to use the latest in high-quality
computer voices to communicate with others. Most recently, NextUp introduced
a new text reader, AbleReader, available with the AT&T Natural Voices (TM)
for use on Mac computers. Information on AbleReader is available at
http://www.AbleReader.com.
Note to Editors:
Evaluation copies of TextAloud are currently available upon request. To
receive a review copy, or for more information on NextUp.com or
TextAloud, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) 982-8043.
All companies and products referenced in this press release are the
trademarks of their respective owners. |
