Today Amazon introduced the Kindle 2, the newest incarnation of its ebook reading device. Included in this 2nd generation Kindle is built-in text to speech capability. From the Macworld article:
A new text-to-speech feature lets the device read to you – any text visible on the Kindle can be read, and you can adjust the speed of the playback and gender of the voice. Your page location is saved if you’re listening to the content, so you can return to it and read or have it read to you later.
If you’re not familiar with the Amazon Kindle Macworld’s description sums it up well:
Like its predecessor, the Kindle 2 is designed to enable people to read books, newspapers, magazines and blogs by downloading them through a 3G wireless network. It sports an “electronic paper” display that simulates real paper; Amazon claims that it doesn’t cause eyestrain like a backlit LCD can generate. Amazon.com currently touts more than 230,000 books, along with newspapers, magazines and blogs which can be read using the Kindle devices.
The Amazon Kindle 2 will begin shipping on February 24 and will cost US$359. For more information check out Macworld’s article or head over to Amazon’s Kindle 2 product page for demonstration videos.
- Paul Natsch
etana February 12, 2009 at 2:09 am
Sadly the text-to-speech capability does not include menus and navigational features, nor does it allow for rate, pitch and tone changes that have come to be expected from alternative literature devices like the Bookport, Book Curier and/or Victor Reader Stream.
Ricky Buchanan February 12, 2009 at 4:50 am
@Etana: I was wondering about those things – thanks for posting the information.
jason Nolan February 13, 2009 at 1:23 am
And it is illegal according to the writer’s guild.
http://tinyurl.com/dhdar4
Ricky Buchanan February 13, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@Jason: I read that. The Authors’ Guild are certifiably nuts.
jason Nolan February 14, 2009 at 1:08 am
I’ve followed that side of the debate from content creators. There was a big push to force writers to sign over all future publication rights for technologies that didn’t yet exist, without compensation. So for writers it is an issue of fair compensation. They’ve never complained about computers that could read text, as that’s predominately for people with special needs, from what I can understand, but to come out with a consumerist tool that replaces the revenue stream for talking books makes it difficult for writers to make a living wage. And for 90% of writers, if not 99%, they barely make a living wage. Nuts? Perhaps. But I see their point.
Ricky Buchanan February 15, 2009 at 8:43 pm
@Jason: I’d see their point if this was a consumerist tool that replaced talking books but it very much isn’t. Nobody would choose to listen to today’s versions of “text to speech” for long if they had a choice – certainly I believe >99% of people would prefer a human narrated audiobook given the choice.
On the other hand, one day computer narrated books will be at a point where they can replace human narrated books. I understand it could be seen as a slippery slope, since there won’t be a clear point at which text to speech is a decent way to listen to a book.
I understand that virtually all writers are struggling and should be fairly compensated when publishers sell their work, in any form. I have absolutely zero problems with that.
From the “special needs” side of the desk we have the facts that having text to speech in consumer level devices makes it accessible at a decent price for the first time. Disability-specific devices always cost about a zillion times more and are not “cool” in the way a Kindle or iPhone is.
If Kindle users are forced to pay extra for the text to speech facility then I imagine that the Kindle people will just stop making it available. Virtually nobody will care, since they never listened to more than a few paragraphs at a time with it. The “virtually nobody” section, though, will contain all of the people with disabilities who needed that technology.
I don’t see a good answer to all of this, frankly. Either the authors or the people with disabilities end up with the very short end of the stick. I wish I did see a good answer.
Ricky Buchanan February 15, 2009 at 8:46 pm
@Jason: That ended up being rather rude at the start, which I had not intended. My apologies – I just think that it’s a screwed up situation where nobody wins unless we break the paradigm completely. And as to what might replace it if we did break it, I haven’t a clue.
jason Nolan February 15, 2009 at 11:38 pm
@ricky No. Nothing rude! You weren’t attacking me or anyone, just saying what needs to be said. I personally agree. And I’m sure that they would agree regarding the value of voice for people who need it. From what I remember in the past, it is the further reduction of rights that they’re worried about. If the kindle agreement said something like, ‘We agree of the author’s rights, but in this instance the tech sucks so that only people who really needed it would bother to really use it so we don’t want to make them pay more by adding it, but when it gets to human quality, we’ll pay you stuff, ok?” (excuse the non-legal language), there wouldn’t be a problem. I think that the situation exists because of fears of future screwage. The problem with breaking the paradigm is that innovation threat. If people can’t make $$ they won’t create things. The alternative is going open source, but that means you have to deal with lack of ease of use. I wish I had a solution.
Ted March 17, 2009 at 3:40 am
Reading by listening with a screen reader is not the same as listening to an audio book. Audio books are more like going to the theater than reading. The words are understood by the brain very slowly. Conversation is at a language rate between 80 to 100 words per minute. Reading fluency begins at above 200 words per minute. Average readers have rates about 300 words per minute. Many good readers are above 400 words per minute. The speed of the screen reader enables higher language comprehension and memory. A person reading with a screen reader at the higher rates of speed do not like the normal sounding voices. We want each word to be concise, no emotion, and consistent in pitch and sound. We add the emotion and meaning in our brains, just like a visual reader adds it in theirs.
Ricky Buchanan March 24, 2009 at 11:09 pm
@Ted: That’s a great description of the difference between using audio books and using text to speech technology for access. Thank you for the comment.
Tom Mcrae April 4, 2009 at 3:14 am
I only had two issues with the Kindle 1 (definitely not deal breakers) and they seemed to have solved them with the Kindle 2. I’m so happy with my purchase. My Kindle goes absolutely everywhere with me! It’s one of the best gadgets in the world!
Ricky Buchanan April 6, 2009 at 9:54 am
@Tom: That’s great that the Kindle is working for you – I’d be interested to know what the issues were, if they’re disability/assistive tech related.
Ted Wattenberg April 6, 2009 at 10:08 am
Following is a link to a petition to try a get Amazon to continue with the text to speech for Kindle2. Groups are going to protest about this issue tomorrow. Unfortuneately, many people confuse text to speech with audio books. Even the NFB continues to use the concepts that the technology will read to you rather than speak the words. This confusion muttles the issue of providing text to speech in this technology for people with print disabilities.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/We-Want-To-Read
Angilc May 7, 2010 at 1:30 am
Can someone tell me how to activate the text to speech on the Kindle?
Ricky Buchanan May 11, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Anglic: I don’t know, but I’ll leave your question up here in case somebody else does – our readers are surprising at times!