Appletell

GhostReader, a nifty text-to-voice conversion software has been updated with the 1.5 release for the Mac OS X. The new release added some natural-sounding Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finish voices as well as some enhancements to the existing voices that the software has. In addition, a pronunciation editor was also introduced to help in modifying/editing the way a word is pronounced, including abbreviations. Even more sweet is the software’s ability to directly export documents to iTunes.

Additionally, the GhostReader 1.5 is now compatible with DOCX and ODT documents. The export to iTunes features also runs in the background, so you won’t get disturbed while doing other things. Aside from these, GhostReader 1.5 is now more responsive when you are speaking selected text and it even works in floating windows now.

If you’re a registered user of the previous version of the GhostReader, you can upgrade to the 1.5 release for free, while those who will use the software for the first in their Macs will need to shell out $39.95. The software works with Macs running OS X v10.4 or later.

Via [Yahoo News] Product [GhostReader]

Some of the old favorite text based games are now coming to the iPhone. A new free application called Frotz Z-Machine Interpreter 0.1 will allow you to run games that were based in the Z-Machine platform on your iPhone.

The Z-Machine games were text adventure games similar to the popular classic Zork. For those that have never played (or seen) Zork you control the game with verb-noun commands such as “go north”. While this sounds fun, at least for those that played Zork growing up, it takes a little more than just loading up another application. In order to install Frotz you will have to already have your iPhone jailbroken/sshd-enabled so you can copy a new directory to your phone.

Read [MacNN]

Based on Apple’s latest patent, speculation is starting that it could lead to spoken word text messages for iPhone users which means hands-free texting for us. It seems to promise that users will be able to send text messages without using standard GSM text message protocols, and the message received would then be converted into audio for later playback.

This could be on interest to the visually impaired, or a smaller iPhone - maybe the iPhone ‘Nano’, or for those that text a lot and drive a lot. Not sure how well this will prevent accidents though, as you’ll still be focussed on your conversation, and not the road. It should be interesting none the less, but as with all patents, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Via [Macworld UK]