New Software Converts Email to MP3s for Portable Media Players

“Several universities in the U.S. are looking at using the iPod as a means to distribute course content to students, such as for the recordings of lectures,” said Richard O’Donnell, CEO MagneticTime. “The MT1 series takes that approach a step further by allowing any Word-based course content to also be converted to voice.”

How it Works

MT1 automatically creates a new Outlook folder. Once a new email arrives in your inbox, it’s automatically selected & copied to that folder, where it awaits processing and translation to audio. The software also supports copying to portable players.

Acapela Speech Technology

MT1 uses Acapela high quality text-to-speech technology, which transforms emails or word attachments into natural speech, reading it aloud with the flexibility and richness of natural sounding speech. Acapela speaks multiple languages and reads proper names, numbers and currencies for optimal and smooth restitution of the information.

MT1 Features:
* New millennium ‘natural’ voices, no bad sci-fi movie voices!
* Uses 4 times less space than a typical MP3.
* Listen on PC too (‘Desktop Player’ is included).
* Listen while commuting (car, train, subway, plane) or at the gym.
* Automatically selects and downloads daily emails to MP3 player.
* Select Word documents to audioize.
* Stores emails and Word documents like music.
* Builds portable email & document ‘audio’ library.
* Algorithms ensure minimum space requirements.

The MT1 software retails for $49.99, and is immediately available for Windows. A Mac version is expected to be released in early 2006.

Source: MagneticTime