

Ask HN: Is there a way to convert web articles into human read speech? - nyc_cyn

Is this something that would be useful to people?
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caseysoftware
When I worked for Twilio a few years back, I used the text to speech engine to
make an RSS reader that would literally read me articles. I don't have the
code anymore but the first version only took a few hours.

I demo'd it once in DC and got some interest from blind/web accessibility
groups but not sure if they did anything with it.

~~~
nyc_cyn
Interesting -- how was the quality? In my experience, the machine readers
aren't 100% comprehensible; you always have to stop and look at the actual
text and it becomes hard to get much use out of it if you're truly on the go.
This is never the case with human read audiobooks, which is why they are so
useful.

~~~
caseysoftware
Conveniently, I wrote on that exact issue too:
[https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/08/the-pronunciation-
challe...](https://www.twilio.com/blog/2013/08/the-pronunciation-
challenge.html) (It appears some of the Soundcloud links are broken, but check
out my account there for the full samples.)

~~~
nyc_cyn
Very cool.

