Is "Tom" the Kindle-2 text-speaker/reader?

[artsandhistoryfan]

^ I hear that 'recalculating' a lot from my nuvi, and it is comical - I can almost hear her sigh with resignation. I'm sure the chip is thinking "Good grief, Harv has made another wrong turn! When does this end?"

But I might be projecting my own insecurities on the voice chip. My wife gave me the facetious nickname of "Mr. Directions", just a few months after we'd met. 

  Ah, another one!  I'm "Ms. Directions" (apropos pronunciation, eh?)  The Nuvi was made for me.  What a perfect target specimen.  As for the harried and disapproving Jill who announces each failure on our part,  I feel like saying to her, "Tell me earlier next time!"   :-)     But is it ever a Godsend!

[Harvey]

I've blogged this post here:

http://www.kindleboards.com/blog/2009/02/meet-tom-the-kindle-text-to-speech-reader/

Thanks, Andrys!

[jmeaders]

I've blogged this post here:

http://www.kindleboards.com/blog/2009/02/meet-tom-the-kindle-text-to-speech-reader/

Thanks, Andrys!

I listened to the WAV file.  That is really amazing, especially the throat clearing and speech inflection at the very end!

[Angela]

I listened to the WAV file.  That is really amazing, especially the throat clearing and speech inflection at the very end!

That was pretty cool!

[artsandhistoryfan]

I've blogged this post here:

http://www.kindleboards.com/blog/2009/02/meet-tom-the-kindle-text-to-speech-reader/

Thanks, Andrys!

You're more than welcome, Harvey.  Your forums are the most helpful Kindle
forums around.  You and your several busy co-mods make it seem easy to keep a good atmosphere too, no small feat.

!

[artsandhistoryfan]

Well,  Engadget's first post for today pointed to Harvey's succinctly described blog entry about our "Tom"

And a guy named Mike Spa comments that he used to work with Tom.

"I use to work with this mystery Tom -- the voice talent. He's a great guy to work with. You have *no* idea how awful bad voice talents can be to work with until you have to record 2,000 voice prompts for a automated speech recognition system. I used to design the user interfaces for those systems. I have since moved on once I realized how much everyone hates them so."

  He points us to Tom Glynn's page, where there are linked feature articles about Glynn and his work -- in The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Washington Post.
 
Now, this is a kind of voiceover work that I'd never thought of.

 - Your dedicated investigator  :-)

 (with first credit to Bufo Calvin)

[speckles]

Am I the only one that is looking forward to this speach feature just for pure comedy relief?

This is particularly hilarious when it reads love scenes from a romance novel.

[KindleMom]

This may have already been posted but here's an interesting article about Tom Glynn who did the voice for the K2 and I assume the K3.  I wonder if he ever got a new Kindle...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/03/the-engadget-interview-tom-glynn-the-voice-of-the-kindle-2/