[fred]

We have introduced some speech synthesis support in 4.2.8 that allows BBO to "speak" various forms of chat, when bids are made or cards are played, and when a claim, undo, or redeal request is made.

In order to experiment with this, you have to upgrade to 4.2.8 (instructions follow), log in to BBO, and click the Options button on the toolbar (it looks like a yellow gear).

A window will appear. Make sure the "Sound" checkbox has a check in it. Then click the "Voice" button. Another window will appear. A listbox in this window allows you to turn on/off voice support for different events. The default is that voice is "off" for all events. Select the item(s) in the listbox for which you would like to hear a voice, and click the OK button.

This is a lot of fun - please try it!

The software that actually does the speaking is something that Microsoft provides. I am pretty sure that all people with XP will have no problems hearing the voice. Uday seems to think that the same is true for people with Windows 98.

However, we are really not sure what (if any) steps people with various versions of Windows will have to do to get this working. That is one of the reasons why we have released this beta - we want to find out if anyone has trouble getting the voice thing to work.

The other reason for the beta is that we want to know what you think about this!

I will start a separate thread where people can discuss this.

The only other changes in 4.2.8 involve bug fixes (including a couple of serious ones involving the new "teleport" function).

If you find any problems with 4.2.8, please let me know by e-mail:

fred@bridgebase.com

Instructions for upgrading to 4.2.8 follow:

IMPORTANT!!! Make sure you exit the BBO program COMPLETELY before you begin the ugrade process!!!

You can upgrade to 4.2.8 at:

Click here to update!

or download everything (including all the latest files) at:

Click here for everything!

I suggest you use the first method, but however you do this, please make sure you exit the BBO program COMPLETELY before you start the download process.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com