eGuideDog

(updated on Feb 3, 2009)

eGuideDog project is to write different kinds of free software for the blind. Currently, we focus on Ekho TTS, WebAnywhere and Cantonese dictionary (which is used in Ekho and eSpeak).

Key events

• Feb 2010: A WebAnywhere server, which supports Cantonese, Mandarin, English and some other languages, is planed to setup for public use.

• Dec 2009: eGuideDog project began to accept donation with SourceForge's donation system through Paypal.
• Nov 2009: Ekho 2.0 released, which supports SAPI5 on Windows.
• Oct 2009: eGuideDog team finished the draft coding for multi-language framework of WebAnywhere.
• Aug 2009: eguidedog.net was registered as the official domain of eGuideDog project.
• Mar 2009: Ekho 0.91 was released, which was the first stable version of Ekho.
• Mar 2009: A new Cantonese voice with 7 tones recorded by Cameron Wong was released.
• Feb 2009: zhspeak, which is a mini version of Ekho in Python, was released with the help of Dr. Colin Kong.
• Jan 2009: Michael Tang joined in eGuideDog team who made great contribution to the Cantonese dictionary and Ekho voice improvement.
• Jan 2009: eSpeak-Chinese was stopped updating because we have no time to maintained.

• Oct 2008: With Silas S. Brown and Hae-Sung Jeon's help, a Korean voice was supported in Ekho 0.75 for trial.
• Sep 2008: eGuideDog Browser is deprecated because its prospect and our limited time.
• Jul 2008: With Silas S. Brown and Yali Cheng's help, a Mandarin voice was released. Ekho supports Cantonese, Mandarin and English (through Festival) since then.
• Mar 2008: eGuideDog TTS - egdspeak was released, which was renamed to Ekho later.

• Dec 2007: eSpeak-Chinese was reported by Hong Kong Blind Union. (無障礙數碼科技通訊 第二十一期)
• Nov 2007: With Kyle Wang and Silas S. Brown's help, eSpeak-Chinese was released. It is a Chinese version of eSpeak with Chinese installer and build-in Cantonese/Mandarin dictionaries. eSpeak-Cantonese was merged into it since then.
• Nov 2007: The project was reported by Hong Kong Blind Union. (無障礙數碼科技通訊 第十九期 )
• Sep 2007: eSpeak-Cantonese was released, which is a Cantonese version of eSpeak.
• Jan 2007: eGuideDog Browser became a functional voice browser for the blind.

• Dec 13, 2006: eGuideDog project was founded by Cameron Wong. eGuideDog Browser written in Perl was the first software in the project.