eSchool News posted a very interesting article last week that charts some major developments in the rapidly evolving text-to-speech and speech translation software industry. The article suggests that “new technologies that enable cell phones to translate speech on the fly and read documents for the visually impaired could have important implications for both educators and students.”

eSchool’s report highlights both NEC Corp.’s not so recent announcement concerning the development of an automatic Japanese-to-English speech translation tool for mobile devices and the National Federation of the Blind’s (NFB) very recent announcement of the first cell phone to incorporate text-to-speech capability.

The NEC Corp.’s speech-translation smart phone, which transcribes spoken Japanese into text and then converts that text into English, is intended for Japanese travelers abroad. However, versions for other languages could one day prove useful for educators and administrators in schools with large populations of English-language learners.

Likewise, the $2,100 NFB smart phone can scan text, read it aloud and even translate from other languages. James Gashel, vice president of business development for K-NFB Reading Technology Inc., asserts, ““It is the next step, but this is a huge leap. I’m talking to you on the device I also use to read things. I can put it in my pocket and at the touch of a button, in 20 seconds, [I can] be reading something I need to read in print.”

NFB software developer Ray Kurweil suggests that those with vision problems are not the only ones expected to benefit from the technology. Dyslexics, for example, are expected to be among the users of the current device because of its ability to highlight each word as it’s read aloud, helping them cope with their disability, which affects the ability to read.

It is extremely exciting to note that in the near future students with reading disabilities or language barriers could be holding highly portable solutions to these challenges in the palms of their hands.

For more be sure to check out eSchool’s full article.