This is impressive from a technical point of view and probably useful from an educational one; I really like the idea that a piece of text can be transformed into any kind of media format easily, depending on your preferences. As recently as a year ago I was using Apple’s text to speech tool to listen to Wikipedia articles while biking, and needless to say, they weren’t very exciting to listen to.
But I don’t think it’s much of a threat to actual podcasts, which tend to be successful because of the personalities of the hosts and guests, and not because of the information they contain.
Which leads me to hope that the next versions of Notebook will allow more customization of the speakers’ voices, tone, education level, etc.
But I don’t think it’s much of a threat to actual podcasts, which tend to be successful because of the personalities of the hosts and guests, and not because of the information they contain.
Which leads me to hope that the next versions of Notebook will allow more customization of the speakers’ voices, tone, education level, etc.