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Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

soundgecko.com

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Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#71

Post by charlesju »

hnriot wrote: post #69
longzheng wrote: post #2

I find I don't have enough time to read all the stuff on Hacker News, but I spend heaps of time on the train where I’m usually listening to music. Since I work at a startup doing some stuff with text-to-speech, I hacked together this text-to-speech "radio station" so I can listen to Hacker News on my mobile instead of music. It uses native HTML5 audio that worked fine with iOS and Android in my testing (though some O…

Audio is the worse way to consume content, why not just use Evernote or whatever and read what you've missed? Then you can continue to listen to music and catch up with what you've missed while you're on the train.

I actually find that Audio is my favorite way to consume content because I usually want to use my sight and hands to be doing something more proactive and creative (ie. programming)

Perhaps this is unique to myself, but I have found that I can function amazingly well digesting something through Audio and working on something visually. I have no formal neuroscience education, but perhaps it's something to do with how the brain (or perhaps just my brain) processes various inputs and outputs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_functio...

As a secondary note to the author of this app. What a great idea! I really like where you guys are going with this. I do find it hard to listen to as the narrator still sounds like a robot. But I'm sure with enough time this will be solved as well.

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#72

Post by eumenides1 »

Awesome work.

Can we get an option to speed up the voice? I think I can process info a little faster than base speed. I believe I saw something where blind people who use screen readers have the output come at blazing speeds.

Also is it possible to skip links, or replace links with a ding noise? I'm not likely going to write links down to visit them, but if i'm interested, i'd probably go back into the article to click it.

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#73

Post by emil10001 »

charlesju wrote: post #71
hnriot wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audio is the worse way to consume content, why not just use Evernote or whatever and read what you've missed? Then you can continue to listen to music and catch up with what you've missed while you're on the train.

I actually find that Audio is my favorite way to consume content because I usually want to use my sight and hands to be doing something more proactive and creative (ie. programming) Perhaps this is unique to myself, but I have found that I can function amazingly well digesting something through Audio and working on something visually. I have no formal neuroscience education, but perhaps it's something to do with how…

I can't code and listen to speech audio at the same time. I can do it if I'm only pattern-matching or doing something that is only visual and doesn't take much conscious thought. I used to listen to audiobooks at an old job whenever I had to do tedious work, digging through spreadsheets for anomalous data. And, I now listen to audiobooks while I'm riding my bike or exercising.

I figured that it was because coding, or writing something like this comment, uses the speech center of my brain, as does the incoming audio stream. Music doesn't have any adverse affects on my ability to code or write comments, since I don't really pay attention to any of the vocals that may be present.

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#74

Post by iambot »

On my Macbook OSX Mountain Lion, it works great and started playing on load (Which didn't happen when i loaded in on iOS but thats to be expected)

One thing that REALLY bugged me was this: The link on each item that reads "View Original Article" just links to the service: SoundGecko - It doesn't link to the original article at all!! - Not even the HN post so the source and the context (HN Comments) is reachable AT ALL!!

Seriously this site is brilliant, BUT what you've done - In my opinion this is unacceptable, at least link to the original article author.

and then linking to the service you're scraping as a courtesy

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#75

Post by miles »

eranation wrote: post #66

I would have paid someone 20$ a month (and I'm sure more will), to humanly read top HN posts, and summarize them. Kind of like tldr.io + audible.

Let the folks at Umano know - they've already got humans reading a bunch of tech news: http://umanoapp.com/

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#76

Post by drcode »

One feature addition that would be revolutionary (IMHO) would be to allow blog authors to embed an audio version of the story, in their own voice, using a custom HTML5 tag. Then, when you parse their page, use the supplied audio instead of TTS. Then, in conjunction with this, give preference to stories with supplied audio, so an HN page 3 story gets promoted to a top story on your radio app, as reward for the effort of supplying the audio.

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#77

Post by shaunxcode »

bryans wrote: post #63
shaunxcode wrote: post #60

I wonder how difficult/viable it would be to crowd source actual people reading the articles? I am sure there must be radio journalist students who wouldn't mind reading pieces for feedback from listeners (on their reading?).

That's pretty much what Umano is doing. I'm not sure how they decide which articles get read though. http://umanoapp.com/

Interesting, I just installed it and the few random articles I listened to appeared to be using TTS still? Maybe I got unlucky.

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#78

Post by hnoob »

Really nice and useful work, longzheng! If you like these kind of services and want to be able to convert any RSS feed (not just HN) into a TTS-spoken podcast, check out the somewhat similar site podcastomatic.com. I use it to kill my daily commute by listening to TTS-spoken blogs :)

Re: Show HN: Built a Hacker News radio web app I can listen to

#79

Post by angersock »

Now, if only we could somehow provide the comment threads, and allow us the ability to assign voices to different handles. I imagine something like a booming Voice of God for pg, annoyed grammarian for tptacek, maybe an old Mac-style gibbering lunatic for losethos, etc.

:)

EDIT: I just tried to listen to A Tale of Two Cities from Gutenberg on SoundGecko. I think I broke it. Anyway to cancel a job?

EDIT2: It got it! Awesome!

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