How good are speech readers?

Listen to the automatic text-to-speech conversion of this blog posting here (1 Mb MP3 file)

One of the things I love about Britain is Radio 4. It's great to listen to the news, listen to commentary, or listen to stories.

Sometimes it would be nice if somebody would read aloud to me all the stuff I have to read on my computer screen. I have to read a lot to stay abreast of Internet Marketing developments.

Speech readers used to be pretty rubbish, and I was wondering just how much they have improved in recent years

And so I've just tried NaturalReader, a free text to speech software application. It "reads" pages from Internet Explorer, Word documents, Outlook, PDF's, and lots more.

I was very impressed, to say the least.

There is a free version, but I splashed out for the paid-for version(40 dollars) and got a much more natural sounding voice from a dude called "Paul."

The software has the additional benefit of being able to convert your own text files into sound (MP3/WAV) files.

I did a little experiment converting this blog posting into an audio file: Listen to the text to speech conversion of this blog posting here (1 Mb MP3 file)

Clearly, it is an automated voice, but it is one I could listen to. The software was idiot proof to install, simple to use, and intuitive.

And many thanks to Andy from Local Conservatory for bringing NaturalReader to my attention.

Wilfing

I confess: I wilf.

Wilf (v) : aimless browsing on the web. Short for "What was I looking for..."

You know what I mean. There you are, working industriously. And then you follow an interesting link, or read your email, or write a blog posting. And forget entirely what you're supposed to be doing.

I like to call it serendipity. Business managers like to call it time wasting.
A YouGov poll sampled more than 2,000 people, and two thirds of them confessed to wilfing. Apparently we spend two full days a month aimlessly surfing. Men are more likely to wilf than women, and young people more likely than oldies.

By the way, here's where you can register to get paid to participate in YouGov polls.

And if you considered following that link, then you're wilfing...

Be glad you don't WILF in China: Internet addicts there are treated with electric shock, acupuncture and drug therapy.

Now, back to work!