My mother is blind and she is very excited about this feature — it promises to open a whole new world of accessibility for her. I hope Amazon won’t be pressured into compromising the functionality just because the Authors Guild finds technological advances inconvenient.
I came here after reading the president of the authors guild’s opinion piece in the new york times that wants users to pay royalties for using kindle’s TTS capability because he thinks fewer people are going to buy audio books now. boo fucking hoo. That article is perhaps the single most idiotic thing I have ever read. EVER. Roy Blount must be high on crack. the number of people who will line up to DEMAND that accommodations be made to preserve their doomed buggy-whip businesses is astounding.
It didn’t sound pre-recorded. Some of the pauses and the inflection didn’t sound natural, but it was pretty damn good compared to most text-to-speech technology.
I really want to buy one. I just found out about it today and realised how close we are to have ultimate easy access to our own library of books with only a small readable screen.
The Kindle 2 talks more eloquently than the presenter. The text to speech feature has publishers in a tizzy because it will cut into their audio book profits. I assume they’d charge me for reading a book to my 3 year-old if they could. In the end, technology will win out and text to speech will be free unless you want to hear James Earl Jones read it. Enabling the text to speech will be Kindle 2’s number one hack.
I’m impressed. That synthetic voice is one of the better ones I’ve heard. Much better than some of the reviews said it was. But could they find a nerdier presenter for this device than this guy??
Some audio book performances – especially fiction – are quite dramatic. A text-to-speech engine will never be able to interpret the tone of a particular piece of text.
Erm… it’s more like the publishers are “in a tizzy” over audio rights, not just because of profits, but also for their clients’ protection. Publishers PAY WRITERS for the legal rights to produce THEIR work. Then, said publisher owns the rights to publish said book in whatever formats were agreed upon in the contract, for whatever amount of time that was agreed upon in the contract. Amazon is a third party and not even in on this deal so yeah–the text-to-speech thing is a bit encroaching, lol
The GREEDY writers and publishers can’t be happy enough to have more book sales because of a whole new market of people that are not normally readers but thru text to speech they will buy books ,,,, the greedy publishers and writers have to try and screw people out of more money . How much is enough you crooks .
Yep, the screwed up capitalist economy is at it again – people who didn’t read before become readers, and people who assisted them at that by designing innovative technologies get rewarded for their efforts. What crooks! >:(
Good point, but this software isn’t even close to replacing true audio-books. I just got a kindle and love it; however, i wouldn’t use the text-to-speech unless I was sitting in the pitch dark and couldn’t wait to finish a book.
geek.
My mother is blind and she is very excited about this feature — it promises to open a whole new world of accessibility for her. I hope Amazon won’t be pressured into compromising the functionality just because the Authors Guild finds technological advances inconvenient.
damn, that speech is pretty good.
I came here after reading the president of the authors guild’s opinion piece in the new york times that wants users to pay royalties for using kindle’s TTS capability because he thinks fewer people are going to buy audio books now. boo fucking hoo. That article is perhaps the single most idiotic thing I have ever read. EVER. Roy Blount must be high on crack. the number of people who will line up to DEMAND that accommodations be made to preserve their doomed buggy-whip businesses is astounding.
This is supposed to demonstrate the Kindle’s TTS, but the sound quality is so bad you barely hear it!
best we could do in the packed auditorium. It was filmed with a Flip Mino HD!
Who bought one? Love it? Hate it? How is the TTS working out?
It didn’t sound pre-recorded. Some of the pauses and the inflection didn’t sound natural, but it was pretty damn good compared to most text-to-speech technology.
I really want to buy one. I just found out about it today and realised how close we are to have ultimate easy access to our own library of books with only a small readable screen.
Awesome!
I agree. It’s the first nearly believable text to speech that I’ve heard.
have you heard Apple’s Alex, that’s also pretty good.
The Kindle 2 talks more eloquently than the presenter. The text to speech feature has publishers in a tizzy because it will cut into their audio book profits. I assume they’d charge me for reading a book to my 3 year-old if they could. In the end, technology will win out and text to speech will be free unless you want to hear James Earl Jones read it. Enabling the text to speech will be Kindle 2’s number one hack.
Epic FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m impressed. That synthetic voice is one of the better ones I’ve heard. Much better than some of the reviews said it was. But could they find a nerdier presenter for this device than this guy??
Some audio book performances – especially fiction – are quite dramatic. A text-to-speech engine will never be able to interpret the tone of a particular piece of text.
Erm… it’s more like the publishers are “in a tizzy” over audio rights, not just because of profits, but also for their clients’ protection. Publishers PAY WRITERS for the legal rights to produce THEIR work. Then, said publisher owns the rights to publish said book in whatever formats were agreed upon in the contract, for whatever amount of time that was agreed upon in the contract. Amazon is a third party and not even in on this deal so yeah–the text-to-speech thing is a bit encroaching, lol
VERY FAST….hope their is a way to slow the reading down…. What if kids want to listen… Or slow adults like me!
Can i download it?
That sounds like crap.
That sounds like Cr@p.
The Kindle? No, just the books.
The GREEDY writers and publishers can’t be happy enough to have more book sales because of a whole new market of people that are not normally readers but thru text to speech they will buy books ,,,, the greedy publishers and writers have to try and screw people out of more money . How much is enough you crooks .
Yep, the screwed up capitalist economy is at it again – people who didn’t read before become readers, and people who assisted them at that by designing innovative technologies get rewarded for their efforts. What crooks! >:(
Good point, but this software isn’t even close to replacing true audio-books. I just got a kindle and love it; however, i wouldn’t use the text-to-speech unless I was sitting in the pitch dark and couldn’t wait to finish a book.
aaa they are geeks!! chet run run they will boring me!! with her geek words!!!!!!!!!!!!!! run everybody!