Eclectic Electronics

Let the Amazon Kindle 2 text-to-speech crippling begin!

Posted: 15 May 2009 05:15 PM PDT

Quite a number of authors have voiced out their sentiments regarding the Amazon Kindle 2’s text-to-speech feature, therefore it has been made optional. As of today, publisher Random House, has reportedly disabled text-to-speech on at least 40 titles.

The presence of the text-to-speech feature on the Amazon Kindle 2 may pose a threat to the audiobook industry, but not as of yet. It will take a great amount of time before electronic devices will be able to mimic real-life voiceovers and narration by professionals.

Clearly, a good number of authors are definitely feeling the heat of technological advancements in text-to-speech technology. Authors should market audiobooks more aggressively by enticing consumers that an electronic device simply cannot compare to professional narration.

[via TeleRead]

Orange UK Nokia 5800 XpressMusic “Comes with Music” edition

Posted: 15 May 2009 03:30 PM PDT

Orange UK will be offering a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic “Comes with Music” edition to their subscribers. Talk about being redundant with the naming. Want to know how the “Comes with Music” edition differs from the Star Trek or general release edition?

The “Comes with Music” edition of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will supposedly allow you to download an unlimited number of music tracks (from the Nokia Music Store) throughout the span of your two-year tie-in contract with Orange UK. And guess what? You get to keep everything you downloaded.

Quite an interesting move on Nokia’s part, I was thinking they would put some sort of time limit on the tracks (like, maybe a year) and then you wouldn’t be able to play it anymore.

[via The S60 Blog and NokNok]

HDMI 1.4 brings a slew of new features plus confusion

Posted: 15 May 2009 02:15 PM PDT

This year could probably prove to be the most HDMI-cable-confusing year ever. The HDMI Type D connector is possibly going to be implemented for use with smaller footprint devices while HDMI version 1.4 will essentially use the same-looking cable as all previous HDMI versions. How do you differentiate? Frankly, I have no idea.

HDMI 1.4 is definitely bringing in some new features which will make videophiles drool and normal users even more confused. The new specifications for HDMI 1.4 will reportedly include a HDMI Ethernet Channel (HEC) which mimics a 100Mbps network connection.

HEC would allow you to share the broadband connection of a television with other HEC-enabled devices. Nifty, but do we really need it? Ethernet RJ45 connections have been around for a while and have posed no problems whatsoever. I would personally go with that until HDMI 1.4 specifications are fully tested.

The new HDMI 1.4 will also be capable of handling up to 2160 lines of vertical resolution at 30Hz. 2160p is certainly quite surprising when even 1080p hasn’t even settled on the mainstream market yet. Will this mean the possibility of new media sometime soon?

HDMI 1.4 specification cables will come in either low or high-data rates. Take note of the word either. Why not just make one cable which can handle low to high data rates?

[via CyberTheater and Braincell]

Apple 3rd generation iPhone to come in many colors?

Posted: 15 May 2009 12:30 PM PDT

Itching for the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) to come up and see what the iPhone would possibly look like? The guys over at iPhone Buzz apparently got an extremely colorful anonymous tip.

Do note that these photos are merely renderings. But who knows? Maybe Apple will go iPod nano-like with their upcoming iPhone. In my opinion, offering the iPhone in too many colors makes it sort of look… cheap. They should stick with professional looking colors such as black, white, silver and possibly gold.

For more photos to heighten your third-generation iPhone anticipation, head on over to iPhone Buzz where they have a more than complete gallery of skittles iPhones, along with a couple of videos.

[via CrunchGear and iPhone Buzz]

BlackBerry Storm 2 live pictures leaked!

Posted: 15 May 2009 11:00 AM PDT

Some BlackBerry device photos have found their way onto the worldwide web and it appears to be the BlackBerry Storm 2! As far as I can see from the photos, there will be a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and the buttons on the front seemed to have been made touch sensitive. If you look closely, the buttons on the bottom part are sort of integrated with the screen itself.