Coincidentally or not, Amazon owns Audible, the Kong of audiobooks, described by some as a “near monopoly.” Will Jeff let us buy different voices as options? Or, better, supply at least several voices, just as Kindle hardware lets you choose fonts?Amazon thumbed its corporate nose at e-book-lovers when it released the Paperwhite E Ink machine without text to speech (TTS).
Maybe my Fire will at last offer the voice of Amy, the British-accented voice I prefer, especially for Dickens.
It’s too early to know how this will shake out for library users with disabilities and for other fans of text to speech, including many a commuter (as well yours truly, who uses TTS when he walks or treads).ġ. Deliberate intra-brand market segmentation? Stinks either way.Īt any rate, even now, you can see Jeff Bezos’ corporate branding on the Ivona site. It’s already using an Ivona voice in the Kindle Fire, and Ivona tech is also powering “Voice Guide” and “Explore by Touch.” Too bad those features aren’t available on the Paperwhite so far.
#Ivona reader little kid voices software#
Well, guess which Seattle-based megaconglomerate has just bought Ivona Software (Web site here, Wikipedia entry here)-perhaps the world’s best provider of text to speech to use with e-books and other texts?
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