Technology that enables the written word to be spoken. Certainly not the newest thing on the block I guess. After all, Bell labs has done it for quite some time with mixed results, in my opinion.

Well there is a new kid on the block in the world of ‘audio blogging’ and it is called FeedSpeaker. Their description really says it all. The idea is for FeedSpeaker to translate Weblogs of your choice into an audible Stephen Hawking sort of media blast that you can then listen to while you’re sitting there at your desk instead of working like you ought to be. (Kidding about the last part by the way)

Feedspeaker translates text RSS Feeds into badly spoken MP3 files. I like to pretend Stephen Hawking is reading my favorite blogs to me on my way to work.

The FeedSpeaker header graphic is Jason Kottke’s SilkScreen font. He designed it as a series of 4×5 pixel letters to look really good at small sizes. Naturally, it’s towering over the page you’re reading.

In similiar fashion, MP3 Encoding is handled by the incomparable LAME (Lame is not A MP3 Encoder). More applications should have a “throw a -h after it and wing it” sort of attitude. I hope I’m worthy. Also, if someone knows how to hack Lame to embed images in MP3 files and can throw a URL or two in the comments, I’d be really grateful.