Want to have some fun? Try out AT&T's text to speech demo. Its kind of fun typing in things and have it read to you. So last month, the Authors Guild raised red flags saying the Kindle 2 was violating copyright laws by reading aloud Kindle books using text to speech technology. Totally ridiculous! I have a few bad words to key in that I would love to have them listen to.
The Amazon Kindle 2 is a wonderful electronic book reader that can certainly help the blind or vision impaired. With estimates of 15-20% of the people in the United States having dyslexia, don't you think you ought to cut people some slack?
The Author's Guild is missing something because they got their head up their ass. By allowing the Kindle 2 to read books out loud, more people are going to buy more electronic books!
Kindle books aren't being read by actors. Its being read by a computer simulated voice without any emotion. This is the same type of voice implemented in Adobe PDF reader. So what's so illegal about that?
A computer simulated voice is not the same as an audio book where an actor compassionately reads the book with feeling and emotions. A computer has no emotion and just reads the words in its limited vocabulary.
Let technology enrich the lives of others less fortunate instead of having lawyers putting a price tag on it. Maybe the Authors Guild should try being blind for a week and see how life is.
About Kerry Kobashi
Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.
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Greed and money
The Author's Guild is scared that Amazon is going to take too much control of the business playing field and weaken their bargaining position. Amazon is the main distribution channel for media sales especially in books and audio books. Just like the record industry, they are lost and losing control of the distribution of their works.