Audiobooks in smart speakers

Lis mon Livre

The goal of the project is to obtain an application which allows various organizations to make their library of audiobooks accessible to users equipped with voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa (available on Amazon Echo devices and on iOS / Android phones). We first developed a version for Google Home devices, but Google suddenly decided to sunset this technology.

Association Valentin Haüy (AVH, France) and CELA (Canada) are the two first organizations benefiting from this platform. Other services around the world may be interested in such a solution: the application is easy to customize and localize, and it can be deployed for a low cost.

The platform can be deployed in any country whose national language is supported by Amazon Alexa. The current list is:

• English. Dialects supported: UK, US, Australia, Canada, India.
• Spanish. Dialects supported: Spain, Mexico, US
• French. Dialects supported: Canada and France
• German.
• Italian.
• Hindi.
• Japanese.
• Portugues: Brazilian dialect only.

What makes our architecture so special is that a library which possesses DAISY formatted audiobooks does not need to export its content to a third party. It will instead have to maintain a catalog of small json files (one per audiobook) and develop a standard Web API on which we will connect a customized Alexa skill. Access to the mp3 files can be protected using standard Web techniques. User authentication will be the same as the login the organization provides to its users for accessing the online library. And the same API can be used for connecting other client applications, especially a mobile application.

Here is the project presentation in French by Laurent Le Meur, shot at the time the project was proposed for crowdfunding on Ulule. This project won a prize from the MAAF insurance company.

Here is the project presentation by the OpenDialog and AVH team at the Digital Publishing Summit 2022, in Madrid.

Here is the project presentation by AVH and CELA project managers at the Digital Publishing Summit 2023.