Huh. Adobe Reader 6.0 (on my iBook, OS X 10.4.3) can read the text of PDFs outloud. This is news to me. Does it do this through the system (e.g. an API call) or is this something that comes with Adobe Reader? (In Adobe Reader, I can access the reading functionality by going to the View/Read Out Loud menu.)

If you are in most (all?) applications, you can go to the menu item with the application name, then Services/Speech/Start Speaking Text, etc. However, this seems to be grayed out for all my applications. How does one enable this functionality?

Mostly, I'm just curious. But it does amuse me to have my computer read out loud the court's decision in the PA Intelligent Design case.

Tommy, try selecting text and going back to Services.

The Mac can read the text of anything out loud. I wonder if they just tapped into that?

Tommy, try selecting text and going back to Services.

Sorry, forgot to mention that doesn't work. At least in Firefox - wait, it does work in Safari. OK, the Firefox folks must not have enabled it.

ION, I am too tired to figure out if I should care:

Heembo writes "CNN is reporting that Google just acquired a 5% stake in AOL for $1 Billion, shutting Microsoft out of the deal." Under this new agreement, among many other things, Google Talk will now interface with AOL's instant messenger according to the announcement on Google's site. From the announcement: "Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said: 'AOL is one of Google's longest-standing partners, and we are thrilled to strengthen and expand our relationship. Today's agreement leverages technologies from both companies to connect Google users worldwide to a wealth of new content.'"

(from Slashdot)

My Windows XP with Adobe Reader 7.0 can read text. Neat.

Google is also changing the way it presents advertising on its sites because of this:

Under the new global advertising partnership, AOL will be able to sell all types of ads, including search, banner and display, across Google's network, which includes Google's own Web sites and the publisher sites that display Google-powered ads, said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience. Google's home page and core search results page will stick with text-only ads, while graphical ads could appear on Google's video and image search sites, she said.

My Windows XP with Adobe Reader 7.0 can read text. Neat.

Heck, my Amiga could do that 16 years ago. :)

Can text be "read" into a sound file (mp3, etc)? I mean, easily - not requiring the use of a program to intercept audio and save it to disk?

Firefox evidently sucks.

t /sweeping judgment

Opera will read for ya.

1) Does this mean more spam in my Gmail account?

2) Is there really a person named "Heembo" out there in the world, or is it really "Himbo" pronounced very carefully?

signed,
spent many moons thinking newscaster Tom Aspwell was Tom Asshole, because he did not enunciate his consonants clearly enough.