While I am finishing up the next piece for this blog, I thought it might be a good time to do a “best of my blogging” redux. By a “good time” I of course mean “I am not ready to post again and shouldn’t go more than 7 days between posts.” That said, I hope you enjoy some of the fruits of past labors: Read the rest of this entry »
TTS is Not a Four Letter Word
To be perfectly clear, this blog is not sanctioned by, endorsed by, or even remotely associated with, Oxford University Press, my fantastic employer. What I say here is my opinion and my opinion alone. This is especially true for this article as I am in no way representing the view of OUP.
For reasons that aren’t entirely obvious to me, the Text-to-Speech (TTS) debate continues to rage months after Amazon was forced to disable TTS functionality on the Kindle. Unfortunately, as with most things, the debate has devolved into discrete business or political vantage points. The Authors Guild sees TTS as a dilution of rights; the publishers see it undermining audio books; the visually impaired see any limitation of TTS as treading on their legal rights; the digerati bristle at any limitation on any technology (especially if it allows open access to content).
- Author: Evan
- Published: May 6th, 2009
- Category: Uncategorized
- Comments: 3
Generation On-Demand
Generation On-Demand is the second of a 3-part series. The first installment, Disruption, explored my personal content consumption over the years and ended with the observation that everything that I used to enjoy had now seen a dramatic reduction in consumption. I ended the piece with the question “So if I am not purchasing as many new books and I don’t buy as much new music and I don’t really watch TV and I only watch movies when I want to in my own home, what the hell am I doing with all the time I must have on my hands?” I will now try to answer that question.
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I know three people with Kindles. My work...
Shipping Online
on Jan 14th, 2010
@ 7:31 pm:
I believe one of the main reasons that publishers don’t want there content test to speech enabled, is due to the fact that more then likely they will end up online as torrents. Freely downloadable by everyone on the net. Its a shame piracy stops dis advantaged people from using certen types of technology!
[Reply]
Skinneechickn
on Jan 20th, 2010
@ 2:16 am:
That’s less than intelligent (stupid). As an avid audiobook listener, and avid reader, I have heard both TTS and ‘real’ audiobooks. There is absolutely NO comparison between the two, and nobody would willingly listen to a TTS book unless there was no other choice.
[Reply]