Sunday, February 02, 2003NextUp.com has some amazing audio products, including TextAloud MP3 ($24.95/20-day free trial), NewsAloud (beta release, $19.95/15-day free trial), WeatherAloud ($19.95/15-day free trial), Stocks Aloud ($14.95/15-day free trial), and Groups Aloud for USENET newsgroups (beta release $19.95, later $29.95/15-day free trial). Some of these products can also be purchased in bundles, at a savings.
With TextAloud, you can "convert any text into voice and even to MP3. Listen to email, web pages, eBooks and documents on your computer or portable MP3 player." I'm trying this out; novelty factor aside, I think it might have a useful application for me (at least in theory). It's invoked by simply copying a selection of text. When you press Ctrl-C or select and copy with the mouse, a small window comes up for a few seconds that allows the opportunity to copy the clipboard contents to the speech buffer. A small toolbar then appears, from which you can choose to read the text aloud or copy it to a .wav or MP3 file. (You can set it up to automatically delete text after play.) One of the things I liked immediatley about these products is how unobtrusive yet readily available they are -- I like that in a software program (who doesn't?). NewsAloud really blows me away, with its built-in news aggregator and links to the web stories.
So, in theory, this could help by allowing me to, say, proofread my work (hear my own words) or read my email or snippets from web pages while doing other things, like running a Google search or opening snail-mail. Hooray for multi-tasking! We're a part of an information explosion, and our dilemma is too much information and too little time. Could audio, then, be the way to go? It remains to be seen whether any of these programs have a practical application for me that would warrant the expense, but the idea is definitely intriguing. And, yeah, the speech needs to be a lot better, but I was impressed at how good it was and how many voice settings and options there are. (These products also support AT&T Natural Voices, which is sold as an add-on for $25.00.)
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