July 14, 2010

Wikipedia read out to speech

The Internet-revolution has brought the most awesome tools to my fingertips making my life more fun and efficient in every aspect. There are a few exceptions though, one being a smooth and sexy text to speech conversion tool. All those great Wikipedia articles just waiting to be read with enthusiasism but there just isn't enough time. And then there's all this time riding the bike, jogging, sitting the bus... pretty much wasted time unless you're a huge fan of that not so silent background clutter. You get the point. Wouldn't it be perfect if Wikipedia could be read out loud, even saved to an audio file to enlighten your ears later on?

Pediaphon just entered my radar and gave me some extrasystoles as I have been waiting for something like this for years.

Well... it was a short walk in the park and after 2 minutes I gave up. That lady reading out the text sounded flat, bored and urinary incontinent at the same time - just as if in the peak of her middle life crises. It's more of a reminder of that our technology wonders are still only binary and we have yet to enter the age of artificial intelligence.

I place my bids on Google though, they seem to have something up in their arms that just might be the next breathtaker. If you take a closer look at Google translate you will se a small speaker icon at the side to the translated text which when clicked on will read aloud the text with some pretty good human tone. But enter some paragraphs of text and the option is gone. Is this the beginning of something? I will be keeping an eye on it... 

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