Odiogo Text-To-Speech

A new Utility program that allows you to "read aloud" RSS subscriptions and create your own "podcasts" of your blog is called Odiogo (alternately pronounced Oh-dee-oh-go and Odd-ee-oh-go). For a demonstration of the technology, check here: http://blog.odiogo.com/index.php/2008/07/07/how-to-demo-movie-deploying-odiogo-on-a-typepad-blog/.

I am actually quite impressed with the quality and realism of the read-back. The voice sounds very natural and the inflections, etc., are comfortable to listen to. Perhaps future incarnations of this program will allow you to assign male and female voices, upper and lower register adjustments and maybe a five band equalizer or such, to allow closer simulation of the voice of the person posting the blog, the RSS feed, etc. To assign these settings ahead of time wouldn't be that difficult and would certainly be the next logical step in the advancement of this technology. Besides, variety really is the spice of life, is it not?

The company's demo was having an issue or two when I was there, but this could have been because my browswer is having an issue or two. I never got to listen to the demo from their site, but having already heard it in a podcast I had downloaded, I was shocked to find that it was an RSS feed that was being read by a software program. I knew then and there that I had to investigate this further and share the information.
http://www.odiogo.com/demo.php

This is a great technology that I suspect is going to be gaining a lot of popularity as more people find out about it. And maybe a lot more competitors, as well, trying to make those advancements that I suggested above and more. This can only be good for us all, as competition usually leads to improvement.

On trying to install it on this blog, I was defeated for some reason, but that isn't going to keep me from determing the reason and trying again, as I know that some blog hosts are a bit more temperamental about changes to their templates and installation of "foreign" widgets, etc. Also, other things I may have installed--firewalls, anti-viral and anti-trojan-ware--could be at the root of the issue.

Should you want to sign up yourself, go to this link and have a go at it. I would be interested in your experience, so come back and post it, if you will. We all learn by sharing knowledge. Thanks.
http://www.odiogo.com/