Microsoft Immersive Reader now has 23 million monthly active users

3 min. read

Published on August 25, 2020

published on August 25, 2020

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Microsoft today announced that Immersive Reader now has 23 million monthly active users. Immersive Reader makes any text content more accessible and inclusive by allowing users to read the text aloud, translate, highlighting a specific line of text for focus, and much more. Today, Microsoft provided a major update regarding Immersive Reader. Read about it below.

Immersive Reader for Azure Cognitive Services General Availability: Last year, Microsoft announced that Immersive Reader will be available as part of Azure Cognitive Service for developers who want to embed inclusive capabilities into their apps for enhancing text reading and comprehension for users regardless of age or ability. This service is now generally available.

Safari Montage and Immersive Reader: The inclusion of Immersive Reader inside the SAFARI Montage Learning Object Repository (LOR) enhances the equitable access of SAFARI Montage resources for all learners. This feature is available from today.

SchoolBox and Immersive Reader: To help ensure content is fully accessible and inclusive, SchoolBox has integrated the Immersive Reader.

Immersive Reader Cognitive Services SDK 1.1 updates: Version 1.1 adds support to have a page read aloud automatically, or to pass in a language parameter and pre-translate content.

10,000+ new Picture Dictionary Images: Microsoft is expanding its partnership with Tobii Boardmaker and including many more images into our Picture Dictionary. For many languages, Microsoft will be adding over 10,000 new images, and Microsoft expects all current Picture Dictionary languages will get more images. This feature is coming this fall.

Fifteen New Neural Text to Speech languages: Microsoft is announcing 15 new Neural TTS languages for the Immersive Reader.

Five new languages for translation in Immersive Reader: Gujaratim Marathi, Oriya, Kurdish (Northern), Kurdish (Central), Pashto and Dari.

Microsoft Math Solver and Immersive Reader (Web, iOS and Android): Microsoft is adding the Immersive Reader, including all the capabilities to read math out loud, including more complex equations. You can also translate, use line focus, and all of the other Immersive Reader features.

Forms Consumer and Forms Mobile Immersive Reader:

We launched Immersive Reader in Forms for our Education customers in fall of 2019. This fall we are rolling out Immersive Reader for our consumer Forms customers who use Outlook.com. There will be a switch to enable Immersive Reader for customers who want this capability. In addition, customers using Forms on a mobile phone will also be able to enable the Immersive Reader.

Code.org and Immersive Reader: To help ensure Code.org can reach every student, they have begun to integrate the Immersive Reader into their platform, and this fall will be rolling this integration out.

Outlook Desktop and Immersive Reader: Later this fall, in Outlook Desktop we will be rolling out many of the same Immersive Reader capabilities that Word Desktop currently has. Mail app on Windows 10 will also get Immersive Reader support later this year.