speech

It's always the case that what is now premium tier will one day be entry level. That's just the way it goes as products become more advanced and users more sophisticated.

Which brings us to the TomTom One 140 S. We've had a few short looks at the One 140 in previous weeks. At first glance, the One 140 S seems like the poster-child for entry-level portable navigation devices, with its small, 3.5-inch screen and unassuming form factor. However, look beneath the surface and you'll find features that were only available on TomTom's top-of-the-line … Read more

The state of Minnesota has handed Internet providers a 7-page blacklist (PDF) of gambling Web sites that they're supposed to prevent customers from accessing, a move that raises First Amendment and technical concerns.

"We are putting site operators and Minnesota online gamblers on notice and in advance," said John Willems, a Minnesota Department of Public Safety official, in a statement. Companies that received the list of off-limits Web sites--which was made public on Thursday--include AT&T, Comcast, Qwest, and Sprint/Nextel.

The Department of Public Safety's letters to the Internet providers say that "gambling … Read more

Box.net has added iSpeech to its OpenBox platform, which lets users get integrated text-to-speech conversion on any text document they have stored on the service. Users simply have to add it to their list of used OpenBox services and it becomes a part of Box.net's contextual menus, meaning you only need to right click on the document and choose the text-to-speech option to get it going.

You do have to be separately signed up with iSpeech to get this to work. It's not a free service when it comes to processing full length documents. There is, … Read more

Google's advice on sidestepping a South Korean law against anonymous YouTube video postings and comments doesn't seem to be sitting well with some of the country's authorities.

Google, citing free-speech concerns, on Monday said it will comply with the Korean law--but by prohibiting uploads and comments rather than by requiring people to verify their identities. And it told people they could work around the constraint by visiting another country's version of the video-sharing site.

Now the backlash is beginning to set in, according to one Korean media report.

"Korea Communications Commission network policy official Hwang … Read more

With the launch of the Amazon Kindle 2 and its text-to-speech feature, a broader range of reading materials would now be available to the 15 million Americans represented by The Reading Rights Coalition, a group which defends the rights of those who cannot read printed words because of blindness, dyslexia, spinal cord injury, or other disabilities. However, The Authors Guild is looking add a hoop or two for people with print disabilities to jump through .

As previously written by my colleague Greg Sandoval, "the retailer, which makes the popular Kindle electronic-book reader, announced late Friday that the company is modifying systems to allow authors and publishers to decide whether to enable Kindle's text-to-speech function on a per-title basis."

According to The Reading Rights Coalition: "The Guild has told them that in order to read their books with text-to-speech they must either submit to a burdensome special registration system and prove their disabilities--or pay extra. The Guild's position is contrary to the principle of equal opportunity for all and discriminates against millions of people with print disabilities. The Guild's position is outrageous and discriminates against the millions of people with print disabilities who are eager to be their readers and customers."… Read more

TomTom announced Wednesday that it's rolling out a few new models: the TomTomXL 340 and 340S and the TomTom One 140 and 140S. The new units now include maps of Mexico, in addition to maps of the United States and Canada. Furthermore, TomTom's Advanced Lane Guidance feature trickles farther down the product lineup, as these new models gain the highly useful ability to display detailed information about major highway lanes and where they go.

The TomTom XL 340 and 340S are 4.3-inch wide-screen models that both feature TomTom Map Share, which allows users to upload corrections to … Read more

Update 2:49 p.m. PST: to include comment from Amazon.

Paul Aiken and the Authors Guild aren't gloating.

The executive director of the 9,000-member guild isn't taking all or even most of the credit for Amazon's abrupt about-face on Friday. The retailer announced that it would allow publishers to disable the Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature on any titles of their choosing.

He says while Authors Guild managers were "vocal" with their objections to the Kindle's speech technology, including publishing an op-ed piece in The New York Times, much more powerful entities were leaning on Amazon to make changes: large book publishers.

There was one more reason Amazon was prompted to make changes, according to Aiken.

"Amazon realized the magnitude of the contractual problem," Aiken said Monday morning. "Many of the author's publishing contracts give publishers the right to publish e-books, but only without enhancing audio. A reasonable reading of those contracts shows that publishers didn't have the authority to sell e-books for use in a Kindle device with audio enhancement."

An Amazon spokesman denied being pushed into Friday's decision. As for whether contractual issues played a part, the spokesman repeated what the company said Friday: "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal."

Aiken began criticizing Amazon soon after the Kindle 2's debut last month. He argued that the retailer was violating the author's copyright and was cutting them out of a potentially new and lucrative market. … Read more

Amazon yielded to the inevitable on Friday when it announced (in this statement) that it would no longer enable the text-to-speech feature on its Kindle 2 e-book reader by default; publishers can make the call.

Instead, publishers may enable the text-to-speech feature on a title-by-title basis, if they believe that choice is in their best interest.

I have been sorely tempted to write a response to some of the factually incorrect and even grossly deceitful pieces I've seen written about this issue since the Kindle 2 was launched, but fortunately, Amazon has made that unnecessary. Nevertheless, there are still … Read more

Amazon chose to keep secret from much of the publishing sector the text-to-speech feature built into the Kindle 2.

Instead, Amazon sprung the feature on publishers and the retailer is now taking public-relations hits that it might have avoided if it hadn't been so tight lipped.

Following the debut of the Kindle 2, the 9,000-member Authors Guild claimed text-to-speech created a derivative work and violated copyright. Paul Aiken, the guild's executive director said many publishers were also angered over the speech function, adding that Amazon never consulted beforehand with either of those groups. Amazon responded Friday by … Read more