Look Who's Talking

PowerPoint's basic sophistication is no longer a novelty; you can't faze attendees with a fancy fade or colorful graphic. However, the developer world is busily building new tools to keep PowerPoint hot. One of the most unusual is Karta Technologies' KartaNarrator, an on-screen virtual presenter. The program uses text-to-speech synthesis, so that words typed into PowerPoint's speaker notes area are delivered by one of seven animated characters.