this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2025
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Actually Useful AI

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ElevenReader: turn your ebooks into audiobooks for free (elevenlabs.io)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/auai
4 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is an app for iOS and Android by ElevenLabs, where you can import a web article or ebook, and listen to it with some of its text-to-speech voices.

I've tried it out for a few hours so far and so far it's pretty OK. However, I did notice a couple of problems that could be ironed out:

  • When using a PDF, ElevenReader will read out all of the text in the document, including page numbers and repeated headings. I couldn't find a way to disable this, so I just resorted to using an ePub version of my book instead.
  • The Lily voice will sometimes drop the first one or two syllables of a sentence, especially after it has paused for a few seconds. I tested a few other voices, and they didn't seem to have this problem.

Anyway it's nice that an app like this is being offered for free and without ads. Apparently a paid tier will be introduced later, but I hope this isn't at the expense of any of the free features. (It would be even better for an open source alternative of comparable quality to be developed in case, but I don't know any.)

(Feel free to crosspost this to other relevant communities! :)

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[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I decided to try this, expecting it would offer some light amusement at its own expense. But the voices are reading with intonation and somewhat convincing expressiveness. It is a little disquieting.

If such a thing were open source or at least locally run and fully under my own control, I should like to keep it.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You might like to try piper: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper

It's not quite as good at getting the intonation and expressiveness, but it's a more natural sounding text to speech than a regular screen-reader robot-voice.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Would love to spend a day learning enough code to make it do things, but I'm pretty much a committed pebkac at this point

[โ€“] Kissaki 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I had to look up pebkac / PEBKAC

problem exists between keyboard and chair

I also like the acronym PICNIC - problem in chair not in computer