March 10, 2004

Here's an idea for a new device and how to implement it: Each day at 5AM, your computer downloads the RSS feeds that match your interests. These RSS feeds download 10-20 headlines and short blurbs from different realms, be it sports, English sheepdoging, or Linux. With headlines downloaded, your computer utilizes text-to-speech (free API from Microsoft, Direct Speech), and speaks the headlines into an mp3 file. At 5:50AM, once your custom news has been recorded for you, the mp3 file (or Ogg-Vorbis file, Wave file, whatever) is transferred wirelessly to your car radio's memory. At 6AM, you get in your car to go to work. Instead of listening to the idiotic drivel of your local news team trying to make sense of technical news, instead of listening to the traffic reports of the same roads that are clogged over every damned day and instead of listening to topics in which you've no itereset interrupted by commercials every 3 minutes, you get to listen to your custom news read to you as you drive to work.

The advantages are obvious:
  • customized news feeds based on the RSS feeds you want.
  • No commercials
  • No stupid jokes or idiotic commentary by news ppl who haven't a clue
  • No weather and traffic every 15 seconds
So, who's up for developing this?

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