Experimenting with the Kindle 3

Once I saw that the Kindle 3 with WiFi was launched for $139 dollars I had to get my hands on it to test it out. Early reviews of the Kindle 3 were stellar praising Amazon for the redesign and the feature set in such a  small and lightweight package. Many of the reviewers praised the new high contrast E ink screen as well as the sleek design. At 8.5 ounces the Kindle 3 can hold its charge for a month's time and store over 3,500 ebooks. Since the first Kindle was released I was impressed with the fact that it had built in text to speech capabilities which I thought would be a great reading tool for some of the students that I work with. Early on Amazon was challenged by a union of  professional narrators who felt that having text to speech capabilities in some way interfered with its members livelihood. Amazon did settle and gave publishers the right to have the speech disabled if they so desired. When you download books from Amazon you can see if the speech is enabled or disabled for a specific book title.

The experience of buying the Kindle 3 off of the Amazon website was fast and pleasant and I was offered the opportunity to apply for an Amazon credit card that when approved gave gave me credit to purchase the Kindle case. When my Kindle 3 arrived in the mail it was already registered and the screen prompted me to turn it on how to get started. There was even a personal note from Jeff Bezo's about my purchase and how I could provide feedback to Amazon about the Kindle 3. I used the Kindle for a couple of days and then realized that the power switch was defective. I called Amazon's Customer Service on a Thursday evening and explained what happened and by Saturday afternoon FedEx dropped off a new one. That was impressive service to say the least. Once my new Kindle 3 was turned on  I synced it with the Whispernet service and all of my books were downloaded and I was ready to enjoy reading. It is hard to believe just how thin and light weight the Kindle 3 is when you are holding it. Based on my experience of using the Kindle 2, the Kindle 3 definitely refreshes the pages much faster than the second generatoin Kindle and the screen is much brighter. Having the freedom to change the size of the font and spacing of text is a great feature and one that I have come to rely on. Turning on the text to speech is easy to do and you have access to male and female voice. You can adjust the speed that the text is being read and the page will automatically advance when it is being read. The speech engine is adequate for the job but is by no means a high quality speech engine experience.

The Kindle 3 does have a jack to plug in a headset or ear buds and there is a volume control rocker switch which makes it easy to adjust the volume level. Pausing the text to speech is easy enough by pressing on the Space key. The Kindle 3 is easy and enjoyable to use and for the price it is unmatched in terms of features and functionality. I for one am very impressed with the Kindle 3 and have enjoyed the experience of using it to read ebooks. It certainly gives those of us who work in the field of assistive technology another option when we are looking for tools with text to speech capabilities.

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Posted in: brian friedlander,Kindle,kindle 3,reading,text to speech

iSpeech - Text to Speech Services

Today I was reading the weekend edition of the Star-Ledger and came across an interesting article about Enterprise Development Center, a high-tech incubation center, which is located on the campus of New Jersey Institute of Technologist. In the article the writer highlighted a company called iSpeech, that provides text to speech services in the cloud. I went over to iSpeech to see what they are about and they offer a full range of text to speech services which could be indispensable for educators that need to convert text into audio. Once I signed up for the free service I was able to convert and upload some Microsoft Word files to test out the service. The conversion process was straight forward with an easy to use interface. Once the file was converted I was able to download it as a mp3 file and play it in iTunes. There are lots of interesting ways that teachers could use this tool to support students with reading disabilities in the classroom. So give it a try and let me know what you think. For more information go to iSpeech. Click on the player below to get a sense of the text to speech quality.

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Posted in: ispeech,reading,text to speech

Context Organizer- One Strategy for Students with Reading Disabilities

For the past 1 1/2 I have been working closely with Henry Lewkowicz at Context Discovery to help get the word out about his innovative software application, Context Organizer. Context Organizer is Windows based application that can very quickly summarize information from various sources. In today's information age all of us are bombarded with information that is coming at us from all angles at the speed of light. But in order to keep up we must have access to this information and be pretty good at skimming and reading quickly all of the text. If we are on the web or reading a Word or PDF files we must be able to read quickly and absorb the information if we are to keep up in our fields. This is where Context Organizer comes in-imagine that you had this reading agent that could go through the document or the web site and summarize the information and pull out all of the relevant information and contextualize it for you. Well you no longer have to wait- you see Context Organizer is here and is your humble reading servant. For example you can go to a web site and click on the Context Organizer icon on your browser and voila- the web site contents are summarized for you to read. If you find that you need to delve more into the web site simply click on the link to take you there. Likewise, you can instantly send the summaries from Context Organizer to Microsoft Word for further review or editing. You see, Context Organizer is an invaluable and transformational tool and could be a god send for students and adults with reading disabilities who have to process a great deal of text. By combining Context Organizer with a text to speech tool, students could process that much more text, and get to the heart of the matter that much more quickly. Context organizer can also be used to search and summarize the contents of your Google searches eliminating the need to go to each and every site that Google suggests. If you like what you see in the search, read the summarization, if not discard it and move to the next summary. It is really that easy. If you would like to try out Context Organizer you can download a 30 day Trial from Context Discovery. You can also check out this video that I put together on using Context Organizer on the web.

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Posted in: Context Organizer,information overload,reading,text to speech

Kindle 2 to be Released February 24th

I'm sure many of you have been following the Kindle, since its release by Amazon.com. Well on February 24th Amazon is about to release the Kindle 2.0 which will include a number of enhancements and features that I though you might be interested in hearing about. I am excited to see that the Kindle 2.0 will include text to speech which will allow anyone to have the Kindle read the text to them. What a great feature for students with reading disabilities. With a library of over 23o, 000 books this will be a welcome addition to the world of assistive technology. The Kindle 2.0 looks incredible thin and with its new capabilities it may even be something that I will decide to purchase. With built in 3G wireless you can download books from just about anywhere. The Kindle 2.0 can hold over 1500 titles which is quite awesome. The Kindle 2 will cost $359 dollars. Here is a link for more information.
Here are some of the new features:

Slim: Just over 1/3 of an inch, as thin as most magazines

Lightweight: At 10.2 ounces, lighter than a typical paperback

Wireless: 3G wireless lets you download books right from your Kindle, anytime, anywhere; no monthly fees, service plans, or hunting for Wi-Fi hotspots

Books in Under 60 Seconds: Get books delivered in less than 60 seconds; no PC required

Improved Display: Reads like real paper; now boasts 16 shades of gray for clear text and even crisper images

Longer Battery Life: 25% longer battery life; read for days without recharging

More Storage: Take your library with you; holds over 1,500 books

Faster Page Turns: 20% faster page turns

Read-to-Me: With the new Text-to-Speech feature, Kindle can read every book, blog, magazine, and newspaper out loud to you

Large Selection: Over 230,000 books plus U.S. and international newspapers, magazines, and blogs available

Low Book Prices: New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise

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Posted in: amazon,Kindle,kindle 2.0,text to speech

VozMe- Text to Speech Tool

I came across VozMe the other day and wanted to share this resource with you. VozMe lets you convert text into a mp3 file which is an easy way to create text to speech on your computer right within your browser. You simply paste text in the window and VozMe does the rest creating your mp3 file. Give it a try!

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Posted in: mp3,text to speech,VozMe

GhostReader Text-to-Speech for Max OS X

Amsterdam - 5 July 2007 - AssistiveWare(R) / ConvenienceWare(tm)
today announced the release of GhostReader(tm) text-to-speech
software for Mac OS X. GhostReader 1.1 replaces TextParrot 1.0 and
introduces a number of new features with an enhanced user interface.
Just as ghostwriters write for other people, GhostReader can read for
you!

GhostReader is a Universal Binary, multilingual speech solution for
Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their documents with
naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. It also allows
users to create their own personal podcasts or audio books by
exporting to iPod-ready iTunes tracks. Or, users can just use it to
speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward
and rewind functionality. In some applications, such as Safari,
GhostReader enables users to listen to text by just pointing the
cursor at the text. Now users can sit back and relax while
GhostReader reads the text under the cursor.

Voices are currently available for the following languages: US
English, UK English, Czech, Finnish, French, Canadian French, German,
Icelandic, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American
Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Turkish and
Swedish. GhostReader itself is localized in English, French and
German.

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Posted in: assistive technology,Macintosh,OS X,reading,text to speech,TTS