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Listen to Webpages While Driving
dimitril writes "Tired of sitting in your car for hours and practically doing nothing but listening to the radio or the same CD for the fifth time? You could use those hours by reading your websites with this little project. You will love those traffic jams!"
Another way to distract myself while driving and get myself killed!
The shareholder is always right.
The highlighted website featured on the "talker panel" screenshot is slashdot.org with other Geek friendly sites prominent. A case of blatant sucking up or what? Also: "...while you have your first cup of java..."
a world in progress...
So it will take a while to get through the menus. Who wants to hear:
faq
code
awards
journals
subscribe
older stuff
rob's page
preferences
submit story
advertising
supporters
past polls
topics
about
bugs
jobs
hof
Sections
apache
Dec 2
apple
Dec 31
(5 recent)
askslashdot
Dec 29
books
Dec 31
(2 recent)
bsd
Dec 22
developers
Dec 31
(2 recent)
features
Dec 23
interviews
Dec 23
radio
Jun 29
science
Jan 1
(7 recent)
yro
Dec 31
(3 recent)
While trying to get to the news? Why not overlay the text onto an LCD windshield? It's just as easy to kill yourself that way.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
What good is having slashdot read to you if you can't post back?!? Get back to me when it takes dictation and can handle meta-moderation.
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
It's easier to convert the output of the speech synthesizer to mp3 and use an MP3 player for the car. That way, you don't have to dress up like the Borg to do a fast forward/reverse/skip. The code for dealing with it is also much simpler. Here's a simple 8 line Bash script that downloads a list of URLs and converts them to MP3 files (options are from memory, so double check before using it):
/card/audio$id.mp3
id=0
cat list-of-urls |
while read url; do
lynx -dump $url |
rsynth-say -l temp.pcm
bladeenc -mono -b 32 -rawfreq=8000 -rawbits=16 -rawchannels=2 temp.pcm
((id++))
done
You can run this nightly from cron. If you want better speech output, use Festival. You may want to filter the output from "lynx" through a sed script to remove redundant content.
At my site I wrote a php script that accesses fortune. For a custom-reader, (also on the site for winshit and macintosh; Linux has fortune on its own :) I added "comment tags" around the fortune ittself that my client can parse out. A site I host wrote a similar client(tbr) for google's "did you mean" function.
I am wondering if a "reader" project will ever employ similar technology? It would be a lot easier if frames were still popular. The difficult part would be getting parser routines that adapt to unkown sites, but ones could easily be written for slashdot, freshmeat, etc.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Mac OS X has wonderfull speech support built in. The unique thing is that it works!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Anybody remember 'radio'? On the radio people read the news to you. They even play music. Old idea.
Me: Computer follow the link someone posted on slashdot.
Computer: following link to http://goatse.cx
me : DOH no STOP STOP STOP!!!
Computer : Loading page..
Computer : ARG my EYES@!!!!!
Me : where is that smoke coming from..
*insert car accident*
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
But I can refuse to boot OS X for anything but gammes!
I would use OS X regularly if it had Linux's virtual terminal support and coult run an X server on one terminal and Aqua on another. With a package solution equivalent to Debian GNU/Linux.
Fink and the rest have potential, but aren't ready for general use. Maybe Debian GNU/Darwin will be released someday with all the goodies that I want. Until then though, it will be Linux for anything serious.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Get back to me when it lets you play Nethack whilst driving.
The hit the solid wall! You die... Do you want your body identified? [ynq] (n)
Or perhaps:
You open the dashboard.. Wait! That's a small mimic!
Another way to distract myself while driving and get myself killed!
Or others.
I really, really loathe this trend toward "driver entertainment devices". Even people listening to background music on the radio drive more poorly. Cell phones are downright dangerous. The move towards HUD web browsers or maps is just asking for problems.
In a few more years, the problem will go away. Carnegie Mellon University has been working on self-driving cars for a few years, and they had a test where one did 98% of the way across the US (humans had to fuel it, though). Until then, though, we have this gap where people think it's a great idea to screw around while controlling their hulking SUV. It's not.
I'd strongly support a complete ban on cell phones in use by drivers. Forget this "hands-free crap" -- the difference between hands-on and hands-free phones is not that big in terms of mortality. They should *both* be banned. Someone does *not* need to chat with their friend so badly that they can put other people at risk.
May we never see th
POV from a helicopter. Close in on an SUV cruising the freeway along the seaside at 90 mph. Inside we see a man at the wheel, and his family. He is obviously quite excited over his new gadget, the Web Talker...
Man: Honey, you should see this website I discovered the other day. Full of News for Nerds, Stuff that matters, it is pure nirvana for geeks like me!
Wife: Yeah, whatever.
The man makes a face and loads the Slashdot homepage on the Web Talker.
Man: Look dear, they are making robots in China that can do Tai Chi. What else would they think of next?
Wife: Are you sure they weren't hinting at their inability to get them to move any faster? Like, so they could do something productive???
Man sighs, then tunes out wife and loads another article. Inside, he finds very little info on the matter. Fortunately, a kind-hearted AC has provided a link with more info. He begins to load it.
Man: See, not all the world is decep...
Suddenly, we hear a loud "Eh. The goatse..." emanate from the speaker, followed by screams of pure terror. We zoom out to safety as we see the SUV lose control and run straight off the cliff.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
If he has a Mac, then he can't run Windows at all!
However he can (and likely is) running some form of Linux on his Mac and I think that is what he is talking about. Using his Mac only for Linux and then using OS X for games. OS X actually has a pretty descent games library now. I think there have been more new big name games released for the Mac in the last 2 years than there have been in the history of the Mac prior to 2000.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
This would be a lot nicer once cellular/satellite web becomes more widespread. A lot of what I would like to listen to/hear about is news-type sites, including of course slashdot. A pre-downloaded site wouldn't be overly up-to-date, so for non-specific one would still be better off with the radio.
With a live connection to the internet for news downloads (news should be text only... not too much bandwidth needed), and a decent sounding voice agent, this would be a lot more interesting and useful.
If piped through the car speakers, it also wouldn't be much more distracting than having the radio on to the news, unless you're trying to claim a first-post on slashdot while driving.
OS 9/X for games.
I do have several PeeCees, but I would rather burn them or give them to my school than install or boot winshit for any reason!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Is this even the best way to acheive this result? I have done research, and implimentation on making computers user-friendly to the blind. I consider a driver blind because except for the momentary glance, there should be NO visual interaction.
Software like Dragon naturally speaking are the best I've found for speech in and out (they do call for a headset). but you can use your favorite flavor of recognition and text-to-speech.
For input, wouldn't it be easier/safer to just mount buttons on the steering wheel? half the cars out already have stereo controls there, why not back, forward, and Read that?
I'm personally building this type of interface for my car, I would NEVER consider using a wired glove (tangle in gearshift) or for that matter a headset (illegal in most states anyway). a reasonably quiet car can handle a mic on the dash and a laptop.
-subnote: seems headphones ARE illegal in California but not utah, figures. I guess drivers can't get any worse here, even with headphones.
-sub-subnote: anyone now any good software to get voice recognition/text-to-speech under linux?
-----
Hey Gimme my 3 cents! I gave you a nickel!
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Yes, we can think up modifications and improvements--the original guy still did something cool. It's a lot easier to improve somebody else's idea than it is to be crazy enough to be an inventor. And speaking of crazy, I do agree that surfing the web in your car could be dangerous--but not as dangerous as cell phones!
Making trouble today for a better tomorrow...
It's definitely a technically cool little setup. But personally I have no desire to listen to the web. I just thank $higherpower that I have my sight and don't have to use computers like that all the time.
A better thing to have whilest driving long distances is something like this: http://www.dension.com I've had one of these MP3 players in my car for almost a year now, 4,500+ songs at my fingertips! I never listen to CDs any more. Only 12 songs at a time? pfft!
Not to mention the headphones... You're specifially NOT supposed to wear headphones in the car because they limit your senses. Because they inject the sound right into your ear, you'll miss out on hearing that fire truck or ambulance and drive right into them whilst they cross the intersection.
I missed the part about headphones in my rush to get first post. In California, it's illegal to wear a headset or earplugs in both ears while driving. (Page 80 of the 2002 CA driver handbook.)
According to an article in Via Magazine, it is legal in Nevada and Utah, or at least it was in 1999 when the article was published.
The shareholder is always right.
And whiz through those traffic jams all the while enjoying yourself immensely.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
" I love to work with RealBasic when you want a quick and stable result."
That's a fricken gardening glove!
Is this really the most convenient thing to have wires coming out of that are strapped to an expensive laptop?
Somebody must not drive a manual.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
...for people to be using Web standards and writing sites in such a way that promotes accessibility, to use graphics where needed and to not use them where not needed, and so on.
And above all, to be using Flash for animation and vector graphics and other appropriate things, not entire Websites.
Headline: Troll Causes Car Pileups Around the World After Linking to Goatse.cx
Car accidents wreaked havoc in major cities yesterday after a rogue troll posted a link to goatse.cx. Toyota Camrys with the new windshild HUD option were tricked into displaying the offensive site, causing mass panic and causing drivers to lose control of their vehicles.
"We don't know what happened, but we reccomend that users of our site view comments at a minimum of 1, 2 if they would like to be safe," said Rob Malda, who runs the popular site slashdot.org.
Fark.com declined comment, citing urgent administration tasks.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
Reading about this, some may rethink why they are spending a big part of their lives in a stopped metal cage while sending CO2 to the atmosphere while looking ot other metal cages.
Evaluate what changes could be made to your way of life and the social organization so that you could employ that time on better purposes like parenting your children, hacking, cooking, sleeping or posting to Slashdot. Unless you actually like traffic jams.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu