FW Editor: What are your plans or objectives in the near future?
Ilkay Benian: My objective is to create a fun and enjoyable experience for people who read and learn constantly. VocaTalk will become a personal learning tool that you can take anywhere with you supported by the power of a modern computer and the infinite information universe.

FW Editor: How and when did you start writing the code for VocaTalk? What inspired you the most?
Ilkay Benian: I've used TTS technology since the C64 SAM. You can see and read only when you pay full attention, but you can hear while doing almost any activity. As a TTS user, I decided to take it to the next level of experience for the end-user by enriching it with music and audio fx. I'm inspired a lot by documentary soundtracks that make the content exciting, fun and listenable.

FW Editor: How can you describe VocaTalk in one single word?
Ilkay Benian: Self-cooked-media for the ultimate learner

FW Editor: Which is the most important feature of VocaTalk? How about your favorite feature?
Ilkay Benian: The most important feature of VocaTalk is the post-processing of TTS to enrich the raw TTS generated voice. My favorite feature is adding background music, which is currently supported by only VocaTalk.

FW Editor: What new features are you going to add next?
Ilkay Benian: VocaTalk is just the starting of a series of self-learning tools that will be released in the future. One of the important additions that will be available very soon is 'vocabulary reminders'. It'll introduce a unique and natural way of improving your vocabulary.

FW Editor: What is the main advantage of using VocaTalk over any other similar product?
Ilkay Benian: It makes computer speech fun and listenable for hours and hours without getting bored. Music is an important factor to achieve this, but it's not the only feature.

FW Editor: Are you going to release a VocaTalk version for Windows XP? Or for Mac OS?
Ilkay Benian: VocaTalk uses the newest technologies available on Windows platform. The downside of this was to support newest operating systems. However, I do want to make VocaTalk available on as many platforms as possible including XP and OS.

FW Editor: Is there any message you would like to send to VocaTalk users?
Ilkay Benian: I've started VocaTalk by creating a personal experience and sharing it with my users. But I encourage them to come back and leave their comments and suggestions to improve the product as it's in beta stage now. I've added many features that are requested by users, like importing mp3 music to use as background. So yes, your ideas are important for me to take VocaTalk to the next level.