tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8947964.post1585663285580866580..comments2011-08-09T00:20:38.016+05:30Budhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16681603430019235684noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8947964.post-83866980953471506362011-08-09T00:20:38.016+05:302011-08-09T00:20:38.016+05:30@Chanux Listening to podcast is awesome.. doing a podcast is another story :) But we should.. we should <br /><br />Listening can&#39;t always replace reading as neither can the vice-versa. As I said reading is quite helpful when writing (duuh!). Reading is also more efficient in studying something that has non english bits (symbols, equations, pictorial, source code).<br /><br />But reading as a form of entertainment or gathering knowledge that you don&#39;t necessarily need to recall precisely (say during an exam) can be replaced with the more efficient listening medium without really loosing much.<br /><br />Unlike watching a movie version of a book where the formats change drastically and the noise level high (thanks to the creative brain), the text to speech conversion is near lossless. Sure the sample rate is higher when listening and you might skip over a word here and there but as long as your interested there is less to loose. It doesn&#39;t take away from your imagination either.<br /><br />But I agree not all audio books are audible. It really depends on the voice clarity of the reader and their ability to improvise. This is why TTS hasn&#39;t really taken off. We&#39;re still a few years away from having a Eddie like personality driven voice synthesis.<br /><br />The question you need to honestly ask your self is, how many books have I been collecting to read some day when I get the time? How many of them would I have listened to on my commute or at night lying in bed if they were good audio books.Budhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16681603430019235684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8947964.post-73476574090488269502011-08-07T21:32:01.898+05:302011-08-07T21:32:01.898+05:30Oh come on Bud! Tell me about podcasting...<br /><br /><br />BTW, I don&#39;t think listening can really replace reading. Because things that are made to be listened does more for us than just text does. (Movies does way more than that.) Reading leaves more room for our imagination to work on. Listening takes away some of it. And watching and listening takes a LOT away from it. We lose some of the fun there right?<br /><br />So for me audio books will never replace plain old books. Yes I agree we all don&#39;t really make time for reading in the age of the Internet. But, are audio books the solution? Perhaps I&#39;m yet to find out.chanuxhttp://chanux.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com