Our intrepid test goose, “Tank” Featherstone has been hard at work trying out some new ideas in the cockpit, and we thought that we’d jot down some of the things he’s been working on here to give you a flavor of the things that are in the pipeline for Talk to Me, Goose! We’d love to hear your thoughts about features that are needed or wanted as well.
Android and Windows
Yes, it’s true. We’re really hard at work building out the new platform capabilities, and we do have a working prototype on both Windows and Android now. It wasn’t without some bent airframes and lots of burnt feathers getting the first screens to load reliably, but we’ve got the core functionality working now on Android phones, Android tablets, and Windows desktop/Surface devices. We’re now just building out the features. As we go, we’re learning some new things that are giving us some ideas for features that we can go back and build back into the iOS app to improve functionality and usability, we think, once we do. But, we’re trying to stay focused on getting these platform expansions built and out the door. Here’s a couple of screen shots to give you a peek from inside the cockpit as we’re building this out.
Pricing & Availability
We continue to work towards making this solution as accessible and available to people living with ALS, in particular, as possible. To that end, we are working tirelessly to build partnerships and relationships that will allow us to offer Talk to Me, Goose! to people living with ALS for free. We’ve got a plan, and we’re working the plan. We expect to have an announcement soon!
In the meantime, for those of you who are currently living with ALS, if you already have an ElevenLabs voice clone, the pricing is $4.99 / month for a “Wingman” subscription. The Wingman subscription gives you full access to all of the features of the application and your voice clone. You also have access to any other voices in the library that you may choose to use as well. For example, you just might want to build and tell a story in a pirate voice!.
The Wingman subscription cost helps to offset our costs to serve the infrastructure for the application and all of the AI-enabled features. We are actively working to find a way to make this free to use for people like you, for people like us, really. Don’t forget, this application was built by a person living with ALS and their caregiver, (by a PALS/CALS team for a PALS). We get it.
If you are PALS, and you don’t yet have an ElevenLabs voice clone, we urge you to get one. You can work with Bridging Voice and / or the Scott-Morgan Foundation to get access to ElevenLabs to get one for free.
ElevenLabs Version 3 Speech Model
In early June, ElevenLabs published an “alpha” version of its version 3 speech model, and WOW! If you watch the video demo of Story Mode, the narration of the video was created with it. Listen carefully to it. It’s subtle, but amazing. Embedded in the playback are vocal expressions that you just can’t get with the prior models. It renders things like sighs, laughs, giggles, gasps, whispers, shouts, and the like. It allows for the embedding of narrative clues, and it interprets expressiveness from the context of the text submitted as well. We’ve been “playing” with it, and it is impressive. What would it be like to laugh again? Or giggle? Or whisper? We can’t wait to build it into the app and then see what we can do with it by building it into the full fabric of the capabilities of the app. Putting Merlin to work with the capabilities of the version 3 model unlocks some really interesting ideas. Stay tuned. If you’re curious, here’s a sample audio clip.
Building a sustainable, and hopefully fun, community
Most importantly, we continue to build a community of collaborators who are focused on making Talk to Me, Goose! available to folks who need it most. With initial meetings in the books with the leadership teams at Live Like Lou, the Scott-Morgan Foundation, and Bridging Voice, we look forward to continuing the dialog with them about how we put this application in the hands of people living with ALS globally, to reconnect people with their voice, to reconnect each of us with our loved ones and to reduce the level of effort and stress where we can. Oh, and to make it a little bit of fun too.
Recently Released!
Fable’s Adventures
We just released the Story Builder capability as a separate app for the mass market. We enjoyed the fun of making stories so much that we thought that everyone might just enjoy that app on its own. So, it’s out now on the App Store, and it’s free to try. Get it now. Stories are super fun to create, and they can be read out in any one of the fun, richly-expressive voices available in the voice library from ElevenLabs, and we added some really fun voices to that voice library for Fable’s Adventures too. The best part is that any proceeds from the app will be used to support people living with ALS. So, share this with everyone you know!
Quick Text and Interrupt Me
On the iPad, we added two new buttons to allow you to jump in and say something really quickly without having to stop typing what you’ve been working on. Quick Text let’s you use pre-built texts for a quick text-to-speech without losing your place in your current text box. And, Interrupt Me, brings up another text window where you can type out a quick text to say something else, while you’re still working on your first message. The Speech Language Pathologists we met with called this a Floor Hold. The people living with ALS we met with called it a way to get a word in edge-wise.
Story Builder
This was, perhaps, the most exciting feature we built yet. It was also perhaps the most fun. Imagine the ability to build and tell bedtime stories in your own voice. Create memories with your kids and grandkids. It’s a ton of fun to do, and the characters are fun to create. You can even personalize them with names and character types that you want. And, the stories can be saved in the cloud for future playback. Oh, and they’re also illustrated. We’re going to continue to refine this feature, but we just love that it gives us the chance to create lasting memories over bedtime stories again.
Message Banking
It’s out! We released Message Banking integration with Version 4 in early June. We’d love to hear your feedback on it. Let us know if you like it, love it, hate it! Leave us a review in the Apple App Store! Again, play back pre-recorded messages that are stored on your computer right in the app. You can upload them here on the website.
Addressing Latency
We released Streaming Audio in Version 4 in early June as well. You should have noticed a reduction in the latency to render speech, especially with longer form texts right away. You should have also noticed the ability to pause, resume and stop audio playback on the main screen as well. This was a major upgrade, allowing for more natural conversation because it shouldn’t take so long to start speaking AND sometimes, when we start talking, we have to stop.
Interrupt Me
Yep…sometimes, you’ve got to be interrupted. That’s why we added “Pause / Resume” and “Stop” to the audio playback. It’s out in Version 4 as well. Version 4 was a pretty major upgrade. The cool thing about version 4 is that it set the stage for things to come.
Tell us what you think
These are just some of the things that our team is working on. We’d really love to hear from you what you want and need. Send us a note on our contact page and let us know. If these are not the things that we should be spending our time on, let us know that as well.