Hopefully not as big a let-down as when Blue of Blue's Clues started speaking, Amazon recently added speech to the Kindle (from appleinsider.com):

If you want, Kindle 2 will even read to you -- something new we added that a book could never do.


That's a better feature than many might think. I've been listening to a number of articles read by my Macintosh using its Speech feature, a feature that hasn't improved much since System, what, 8? Yet the speech quality still turns driving time into relatively productive time.

If Kindle can improve on the Mac voices, they'll have something there. The Mac, for instance, stumbles over some difficult words... like the English spelling for "labour". If you took the things that were tough to say and put in carefully honed replacements for those exceptions -- Apple's Speech just plows through every word with generic pronunciation -- I wouldn't buy, but I'd be envious.

There's a lot of room around the so far non-existent steno pad sized iPod touch for other apps. I recently eBayed a new Peek myself, precisely because I'd rather limit what I can do away from a traditional computer before I pour my life into the digital garbage more than I already do. (The price is pretty close to right too, even if every Peek review says otherwise.)

Update: Ouch. The voice in the movie is not an improvement. Hard code certain words, dang it!

Update again: Hrm, now it has a web browser? At $359, still way too much to pay, but getting cooler, even in 16 colors o' grey.

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