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Tired of reading?


Earendil

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Well I sure am. Everytime ToS makes a post I have to sit and read and read and read for hours. (j/k ToS )

 

Anyway.... I just figured out a way to get the information I need out of any website without reading.

 

Impossible, you say?

 

Nay!

 

Firefox fans, continue reading at own risk

 

Opera - the fastest, the best, the most reliable, and the coolest web-browser in the world has a neat little function called Voice.

 

This means both surfing via voice-commands, and - you guessed it. The browser talks to you.

 

So.. This is how I navigate onto the fur den:

 

Run Opera.

 

Say "Opera, New Tab!" - Opera loads new tab.

 

Say "Opera, Fur Den!" - Opera loads The Fur Den in the new tab

 

Then I surf as usual with my mouse.

 

Then, when I stumble onto ToS' kilometer long posts of text, I hit CTRL-A and then CTRL-V (Or right click and select "Voice").

 

And like magic - Opera reads the text out loud for me. Without any errors, and perfectly understandable. This means I can surf for pics or other things while Opera rants out ToS' post in the background.

 

When Opera has finished reading the text to me, I say "Opera, Reply!" - And it loads the reply-page for me to start typing in.

 

 

Remarkable you say?

 

Indeed.

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Indeed I do say......remarkable!!

 

Is it possible I wonder to chose the voice that 'opera ' uses to read back to you with. If so, then I wonder again!.....what/who's voice would you chose to represent ToS's dulcet tones?

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Foxy? Janey? Maribeth? Carol? Lynxette? Linda? Ms T? Shelly? Jennafur?

 

Say, could every gal here give me a personal phone call and I will decide which voice I like best?

 

Course now with Jennafur as a choice. Maybe you don't need to...

 

W

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Ah Linda, you are always on top. Just don't tell Bob I said so though...

 

You know how we old guys have to have a quick look though when a good looking young woman like that comes along!

W

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Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X have had this capabilty for years.

It's so successful a feature that Microshaft even saw fit to copy it!

 

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Because Windoze uses proprietary formats that require software to be downloaded in order to be compatible??

 

But, at least you can rest easy in the knowledge that Mac OS was good enough for Microshaft to COPY!

 

You should try the NEXT version of Windoze! >>> Windoze RG <<<

 

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Though I use Mozilla Firefox most often, Opera and Galeon both work very well in Linux.

 

Getting some computer work done next week so I'll get the latest Opera reloaded again.

 

OFF

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I am surrounded by cybermen.

Or maybe borg.

 

thats waht its like : a wat between cybermen and borg.

 

"resistance is futile...prepare to be assimilated!"

 

"You will be upgraded...or you will be DELETED!"

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Unless you're using GNU or UNIX or Linux, your OS sux.

 

Hey! Would you look at that! Macs DO use UNIX, now! Hmmm!

 

Seriously, I'm in the "Anything but Microsoft" camp.

I'm running a 6 year old iMac with a 400 MHz G3. Still going strong.

I can run about 6 different systems (OS X, OS 9, BSD UNIX, X-Windows, DOS and, if I saw fit, just about any of the Windoze versions from 9X through XP.)

 

 

Haven't tried Opera yet. Firefox has done good service for me. If I need Text-to-Speech I can ask the OS to do it for me. OS 9 and OS X also have pretty good speech recognition, if I was so inclined. (I'm not really.) OS X has good handwriting recognition if you have a tablet. (I do and I use it occasionally.)

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Earendil, I have to say that opera voice is insanely good! I got it to read a whole ebay page and was amazed by the pronounciation and exactness (if that's a word).

 

It read this number 9320949351 in words!

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Foxy? Janey? Maribeth? Carol? Lynxette? Linda? Ms T? Shelly? Jennafur?

 

Say, could every gal here give me a personal phone call and I will decide which voice I like best?

 

Course now with Jennafur as a choice. Maybe you don't need to...

 

W

 

I have only heard JennaFur's and Ms T's voices thus far - and they both sound pretty damned good!! Reckon all the other ladies here must have amazing voices too!!

 

Good job no'one's asking for my voice, since i reckon i sound pretty damned awful!!

 

Unclejoe

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Oh, God! Eileen Fleiss!

 

That ad lasted about 0.68 seconds on TV. Everybody thought she was stoned!

 

The new crop of TV ads: >>> Apple.com <<<

 

Now, some of THOSE are funny! Even if you're not a Mac fan!

 

Y'Know the idea of sampling somebody's voice and using it for Text-To-Speech isn't so far fetched as it may sound! I know people who used to be in the computer speech business. (Ever heard of "Dragon Dictation Systems"?)

 

With the right know-how all you have to do is sample a person's voice the correct way then snip out the phonemes and store them digitally. Viola! Your voice on the comptuer!

 

OS X has 22 different T.T.S. voices built in. Just switch between them from the control panel. I use "Victoria" the most.)

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Text-to-speech algorithms use statistics to interpret what is typed and guess what phoneme to use but, yes, if the word is spelled wrong the computer will probably pronounce it wrong.

 

But on the upside, the computer will pronounce "phish" the same as "fish".

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