Kindle 2 Text-to-speech Demonstration

[celt67]

Speak into the microphone, you fucking idiot.

[wwwgeekdotcom]

@celt67 you must take the kindle very seriously

[agello24]

@celt67 turn up ur volume!

[NITRO1250]

@celt67 He is, just the person recording it doesn't have a good microphone which is the issue. The on camera mic is picking up the ambient sound from the room.

[jimmjimm6699]

You have selected Steven Hawkings as the computer's default voice.

[Ugotsta]

The speech synthesis is very impressive, easily on par or perhaps better than that available on the PC market. It is a very nice feature to have it built into a reading device.

[swordfish00007]

I agree Jenn and Gavin,

No need to be so angry on here. Text to speech isn't a bad thing and for some people it can help them. No big deal why is everyone so angry?

[JennWilliams1]

I have no idea why those of you who are posting negative comments are so upset. As someone who drives a lot, I am considering buying myself this Kindle 2 for the text-to-speech capability. I'm also considering purchasing one for my teen-aged son who has learning disabilities; he needs to be read to in order for his brain to process while he follows along visually. What's the big deal?

[gavinjoaquinolivas]

ok i dont even read that much and im considering buying one of these, its pretty sweet, and dont listen to 90% of the people commenting on here, maybe its their time-o-the month...

[assass222]

Hey I have a learning disability too! I have a hard time learning bullshit. Why don't we text-to-speech your bullshit so I can learn!

[freckleface6543]

@JennWilliams1

[freckleface6543]

@JennWilliams1 my son has epilepsy and cannot focus long enough to read. How good is the text to voice?

[BloodOfAmon]

Audiobooks always suck. Same shitty robotic voice for every word, every character...Shit.

[habbito12]

aaa they are geeks!! chet run run they will boring me!! with her geek words!!!!!!!!!!!!!! run everybody!

[bluetube01]

YOU are annoying ME with your poor use of English. Plug your ears, everybody!

[veridia]

omg, god forbid should a little boredom prevent you from learning something you dumbass.

Who cares what the voice sounds like, knowledge is knowledge. Unless you want everything everyone says to be sugarcoated with dynamic voices.

[sdbracht]

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 .

[secretident2]

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! >:(

[Oregon696969]

That sounds like Cr@p.

[Oregon696969]

That sounds like crap.

[TeseProductions]

Can i download it?

[Xinoutorah]

The Kindle? No, just the books.

[ucci05]

VERY FAST....hope their is a way to slow the reading down.... What if kids want to listen... Or slow adults like me!

[audiotrax2000]

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??

[veridia]

What would you rather be. A nerd (smart person), or a complete dumbass. The choice is yours.

Studies show that people who graduate college have much lower unemployment rates... which would you rather be. People who graduate from grad school have even lower unemployment rates. Intelligence is about survival in the civilized world. Or you can end up as some gangbanger on the mean streets with a life expectancy of less than 40 feeling insecure because of constant threats to your survival. :)

[audiotrax2000]

Oh the anger boiling beneath......I did graduate from college, and I do love my electronic books.  Lot's of them.

[Lemon77UG]

You're a complete and utter asshole.

[numbcheese]

Intelligence has nothing to do with what degree you have. Many of the professors I have had would never make it in the real world, and just stayed in school forever because they couldn't do anything else.

[xAirJordan23x]

I think you could use a kindle to educate your ignorant ass.

[1trip711]

Epic FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Fretkillr]

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.

[colmanseo]

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.

[eternallyraven]

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

[oklahomasgreg]

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.

[veridia]

An auditory learner might find it eminently useful. Dynamic voice vocalizations are for people with ADD who want everything sugarcoated to prevent what they call a bored state of mind. Boredom is simply a lack of self control and willpower necessary to focus. When you develop that willpower, all boredom dissapears.

[assass222]

LMAO

[tiamtheelf]

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!

[wwwgeekdotcom]

Who bought one? Love it? Hate it? How is the TTS working out?

[naardebioscoop]

This is supposed to demonstrate the Kindle's TTS, but the sound quality is so bad you barely hear it!

[wwwgeekdotcom]

best we could do in the packed auditorium. It was filmed with a Flip Mino HD!

[10mintwo]

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.

[jewpiles]

damn, that speech is pretty good.

[tzushih]

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.

[normalman37]

geek.

[admiralamadras]

I am a special education teacher, and I can see how having the text to speech would really be an invaluable tool for my students. Thanks Amazon for this feature. My students are going to benefit from this.

[samdreilinger]

I bet that the text they chose was something prerecorded, so of course it sounded natural. Arbitrary books won't sound like that.

[NobleHam]

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.

[YinHoNg]

I agree. It's the first nearly believable text to speech that I've heard.

[duncanpickup]

have you heard Apple's Alex, that's also pretty good.

[celestialghost123]

Fck, that's amazing. I should have waited for this, but know, i haaaaaaaaad to have the first Kindle for Christmas. Dammit i so want to buy this one. And it's awesome that Stephen King helped promote it with his new novella UR. I'm reading it today, awesome!

[oneeyedgeek]

As someone whose vision makes it hard to read most documents, I love something like this. Some of the other programs sound too "mechanized"(?)

[anieb]

Re other software packages that can do this: Since this feature is a part of the new Kindle, and the Kindle has 24/7 wireless at no extra charges for using the web access from anywhere at anytime, yah, I think it's a good extra to have this to listen to at intervals when you can't be sitting there reading but you want to get on with the book.

[anieb]

I did computer support (freelance) for a Berkeley speech technologies firm in the 90s. When I called one night I got the answering svc and I mentioned the next day that the guy at the svc sounded very weird. :-) That was my intro to this kind of speech. This is of course eons better in only a bit more than a decade. I was amazed that some words were said with a semblance of enthusiasm and that some sound-combinations were faster than the rest of the word combos, but appropriately so.

[anieb]

The part that is unique is that it reads anything on the Kindle, including personal or business documents. This would be good if you have to do something else but want to keep "reading" ...

[wwwgeekdotcom]

sure, nuance does this. as do many other companies.

[anieb]

The appropriate syllable emphasis surprised me.

[wwwgeekdotcom]

you'd listen to that for more than, say, 10 minutes? Anyway, yes, it is impressive from a technical standpoint.

[cowtuber]

wow, i was wondering how good that text to speech worked... its amazing. Can i get a text-to-speech that good for my computer?