A startup called PimpMyNews.com has launched a free news application that converts text news into spoken news for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Web-based service can be accessed through the iPhone’s or iPod Touch’s Safari browser. PimpMyNews uses the Internet
to find the latest news and converts text into audio that can be listened to on the devices. Audio versions of the news can be shared with others by posting the information on social networking sites.
Users are able to create what the company calls “personalized talking newspapers”. A user is able to choose from 59 categories from news sources and blogs for the program to look for and translate. The information is sent to the iPhone or iPod Touch and is constantly updated as news comes in. The PimpMyNews Internet site has over 200,000 talking stories and over 4,000 are added each day.
The news from this service does sound automated. A live person isn’t reading the news like you hear on the radio or television, so inflection and diction sound computerized. (Maybe some day computers will learn to speak with some emotion.) But the service is free so why not give it a try?
http://www.bywifi.com is another good service for iPhone. It provides mobile transcoding of videos and web pages for iPhone. I always transcode and download youtube movies and read web pages with it.
I have been creating the personalized podcasts on my iPod… it is fast and easy, and allows me to stay current on what is up in the world, which I otherwise would not be caught up on. I love it!
This is an awesome site. I was using it for a while and then they came out with the iPhone app, so now I’m hooked even more. I just sync in the morning and listen on the way to work.
really cool site.. thanks for the info about pimpmynews. however, i think the name should be changed to pimp my drive to work! i just downloaded the iphone app and its real tight. i totaly recommend it!
Sweet site! I usually stay away from enhancement drugs but this procutivity enhancer is great!