A project-based book that teaches beginning Python programmers how to
build working, useful, and fun voice-controlled applications.
This fun, hands-on book will take your basic Python skills to the next
level as you build voice-controlled apps to use in your daily life.
Starting with a Python refresher and an introduction to
speech-recognition/text-to-speech functionalities, you'll soon ease into
more advanced topics, like making your own modules and building working
voice-controlled apps.
Each chapter scaffolds multiple projects that allow you to see real
results from your code at a manageable pace, while end-of-chapter
exercises strengthen your understanding of new concepts. You'll design
interactive games, like Connect Four and Tic-Tac-Toe, and create
intelligent computer opponents that talk and take commands; you'll make
a real-time language translator, and create voice-activated
financial-market apps that track the stocks or cryptocurrencies you are
interested in. Finally, you'll load all of these features into the
ultimate virtual personal assistant - a conversational VPA that tells
jokes, reads the news, and gives you hands-free control of your email,
browser, music player, desktop files, and more.
Along the way, you'll learn how to:
● Build Python modules, implement animations, and integrate live data
into an app
● Use web-scraping skills for voice-controlling podcasts, videos, and
web searches
● Fine-tune the speech recognition to accept a variety of input
● Associate regular tasks like opening files and accessing the web with
speech commands
● Integrate functionality from other programs into a single VPA with
computational knowledge engines to answer almost any question
Packed with cross-platform code examples to download, practice
activities and exercises, and explainer images, you'll quickly become
proficient in Python coding in general and speech recognition/text to
speech in particular.
