Immersive Reader, which is a part of the Cognitive Services suite within the Microsoft Azure AI Platform, provides help for readers to read and comprehend text. In a recent blog, Microsoft announced the general availability of the service allowing developers and partners to leverage the service in the solutions and products with capabilities such as translate text in over 70 languages, read text aloud, and focus attention through highlighting.
Last year in June the public cloud vendor announced that it would include Immersive Reader in the Cognitive services suite to allow developers to embed inclusive capabilities into their apps for enhancing text reading and comprehension for users regardless of age or ability. Now the service is generally available, and Microsoft enhanced Immersive Reader with a few updates:
- Added support for 15 of its neural text-to-speech voices.
- The addition of five new languages (Odia, Kurdish [Northern], Kurdish [Central], Pashto and Dari) to the translator, bringing the total of supported languages to 70.
- An updated 1.1 version of the SDK including support to have a page read aloud automatically, and pre-translating content.
Source: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/learning-tools
Furthermore, Microsoft partners with organizations who will integrate Immersive Reader into their apps, websites, and services to make content more accessible. Additionally, in the coming months Microsoft plans for more updates to become available, such as 10,000+ new Picture Dictionary Images, integration in Outlook Desktop, and Microsoft Math Solver.
Anand Raman, group product manager, Azure AI, stated in the blog post:
Immersive Reader has become a critical resource for distance learning, with more than 23 million people every month using the tool to improve their reading and writing comprehension. Between February and May 2020, when many schools moved to a distance learning model, we saw a 560 per cent increase in Immersive Reader usage. As the education community embarks on a new school year in the Fall, we expect to see continued momentum for Immersive Reader as a tool for educators, parents, and students.
Currently, Immersive Reader is available in the Azure Regions West- and North Europe, UK South, Southeast Asia, Central India, Japan East, East US, East US 2, South Central US, West US and West US 2. Furthermore, pricing details are available on the pricing page and guidance on the documentation landing page.
