[insoluble]

I've thought about getting into this area myself, but I was too afraid there was not enough market for it. This was several years ago. As far as CPU power, today's average PC is easily 5x what's necessary for perfect speech. The real question is the algorithms being used. Perhaps the fear is that the algorithm would be pirated. I mean just look at the history of digital audio (or video) and encoding, with things like Xvid and Ogg. Basically every time a good algorithm even starts to gain traction, an open "alternative" is made available practically overnight. This is not to say I don't like open algorithms. In fact, I believe that any standard algorithm should be open. This fact, however, is enough to deter research in this field. Perhaps a Web service that converted text to speech would be one option, but it would have limited applicability.

Edit: Perhaps a Kickstarter or related would be a good idea since this type of feature would be useful by so many people. Nearly everyone has functioning ears. (no offence to those who don't)