October 30, 2005

Speak With Me

I just came across a company tonight called Speak With Me that offers some pretty cool speech recognition software for vehicles. Here’s a sampling of what it allows you to do:

For the demo, Ajay controlled his stereo system verbally, changing songs, picking tracks, controlling volume, etc. The commands he used to do this were in absolutely plain English and varied considerably in structure. For instance, Ajay at one time said “go to track 3″. Another time he said “play for me another one bites the dust”. Later, “I would like to hear wonderful tonight by eric clapton. “louder”. “quieter”.

Pretty cool huh? Here’s a link to the entire article.

There are some neat ramifications here for audio learning. As more cars become “iPod-enabled” there becomes an increasing need for safety while driving. Fiddling with an iPod while you’re behind the wheel is a recipe for disaster. A product like the one that Speak With Me provides could be the magic bullet.

You gotta love technology!

October 18, 2005

Zaadz Notes

We are extremely proud to announce that we’ve posted a new series of audio content to the site called the Zaadz Notes. The Zaadz Notes are a series of essays written and read by Brian Johnson, Philosopher and CEO of Zaadz, Inc. Each Note features wisdom about a concept or teacher that will educate and inspire you.

Brian covers a ton of ground in the Notes including teachers like Abraham Maslow, Marcus Aurelius, Rumi, Seneca, Socrates and more. If you’ve never taken the time to dive into this sort of wisdom, the Notes are a perfect introduction. They average about 20 minutes in length and are the perfect thing to throw on in the car when you’re on the way to work. Think of it as your daily dose of education and encouragement.

Definitely check out Brian’s page on our site as we keeping adding new stuff. If you love the Notes, you’ll definitely want to check out the Zaadz Daily Wisdom Podcast as well.

Really good stuff. We plan to keep it coming.

October 17, 2005

An iPod with Wi-Fi?

Apple can’t seem to go more than a week or two without some hot new announcement or rumor. The latest, courtesy of Mac OS Rumors, is that Apple is developing a Wi-Fi equipped iPod that can directly interface with with Airport Express networking stations and allow for streaming and downloading of audio content. Here’s the complete story:

A Wi-Fi iPod

It would an interesting and amazing little device. Imagine sitting at the airport or in line at the bank and being able to browse and download content to your phone. Having said that, that’s something that is also on the horizon for mobile phones. The iPod vs. mobile phone battle will be one to keep a close eye on. My money is on the mobile phone to win out in the long run. Who the heck wants to carry two devices when you can just carry one?

October 14, 2005

Audio Books Are Cool

I don’t really know the precise demographic for audio books. They’re not like comic books where the people they draw in all look, dress, and smell the same. But I do believe that audio books aren’t necessarily for nerds and they might even fit into the status of cool. I witnessed something tonight that proves their increasing status as a cool medium. I was in Beverly Hills and a car pulled up to a stop light. It was a Ford Mustang Convertible and the guy was blasting an audio book! It was not radio. It was a definite mystery/thriller-audiobook-narrator-voice bumping from his sports car so that everyone on the block could hear. I caught a good portion of it and at that volume the guy really wanted the world to know that audio books are now cool. So the next time you’re listening to a killer audio book, roll down your windows and blast the treble so that all the world will know: AUDIO BOOKS ARE COOL! Or you can just keep them hidden from your friends and secretly pull them out when you’re alone in rush traffic.

October 11, 2005

Help us Change This!

There’s a cool website called ChangeThis.com that I’ve been a fan of for quite a while. They invite authors to write “manifestos” that propose new ideas and ways of looking at the world. In the past they’ve had some pretty cool manifestos from the likes of Tom Peters, Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin.

I have a proposal listed on their site right now. It would be a manifesto about audio learning and its ability to revolutionize peoples’ lives. If you have a minute (it won’t even take a minute), please cast a vote for the proposal at the following URL:

http://www.changethis.com/proposals/545

The more votes the proposal gets, the more likely that it will be turned into a full-blown manifesto.

Thanks in advance for helping to support the Audio Learning Revolution!

October 7, 2005

Cure for the Common Commute

It’s starting to catch on. People are awakening to the fact that their morning commute doesn’t have to be this dreaded, boring, tedious activity. Driving to work can be the one time during your day when you get to be selfish. You get to listen to what you want to listen to and learn about the things you might not normally have the time for. It’s a great way to learn and develop personally and professionally.

Kudos to the gang over at Simply Audiobooks for helping spread the gospel of audio learning. They’ve launched a campaign called “Cure for the Common Commute” which is both catchy and apropos.

The common cold and the “common commute” have a lot in common. Many people deal with both and both are very annoying. There are some common-sense ways to prevent the common cold and likewise, there are some easy ways to prevent frustrating commutes. We can think of over 8,000 of them in our Catalog. 🙂 (Speaking of which, we added over 1,500 new titles to our catalog this week. Check it out!)

One day we might figure out the cure for the common cold. In the meantime, finding the cure for the common commute seems a little easier.

October 5, 2005

Headphones for the Long Run

Well it’s official. I’m running the OC Marathon in January. It’ll be my third marathon and I’m definitely looking forward to it. My goal is to better the time my brother ran at the San Francisco Marathon in July…3:33. It isn’t going to be easy and I realize that I’ll need to train hard.

Part of the nice thing about running an “audio learning company” is that I can actually work during my workout. I review a number of podcasts and audio books every week and my run is a perfect time to listen to them. There’s something about being in motion and getting the ol’ heart rate up that makes listening to these even more enjoyable. It’s definitely something I look forward to.

Lately I have realized the need for some better headphones to use while I’m doing my runs. The white earbud headphones that come with the iPod have never worked for me while working out as they fall out way too easily. I got some cheap earbud headphones that wrap around the ears but those aren’t much better. I figured it was time to invest in something a little better.

I spent an hour or so reviewing posts over on the iLounge forums. It’s amazing how much discussion there has been about the best headphones for running! I probably combed through at least four dozen threads and while there wasn’t a consensus, a couple of favorites emerged.

It really depends on whether you want noise-cancelling or not. The upside of noise-cancelling headphones is that they drown out sounds around you. While this can often be a positive (such as while flying) it can sometimes be a negative while running as it would suck to get hit by a bus that you never heard coming…

In the end I decided to get both a pair of cheaper, non-noise cancelling headphones (the Sony MDR-A34L) and a slightly more expensive pair of noise-cancelling headphones (the Shure E2c). I’m excited to try them both out and see how they stack up against each other. My guess is that I’ll use the Sonys whenever there is traffic around and the Shures when there isn’t. Regardless of what I do, I’ll report back here.

September 27, 2005

M. Scott Peck Passes Away

Some sad news to report. M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, passed away last weekend. About a year ago I listened to his audio book Golf and the Spirit and was touched by Peck’s insights, humility and gentle style of writing. He is an author who will no doubt be missed by many people around the world.

In honor of his life and body of work we’ve posted an M. Scott Peck author page on our site. Here’s the link. We have 10 of his audio titles up and will be adding more soon. These titles, including The Road Less Traveled, are narrated by the author.

September 26, 2005

The Main Event: Audio Books vs. Podcasts

Seth and I were talking a bit tonight about the merits of audio books versus podcasts and I thought it might make good fodder for a quick blog entry. I’ll be the first to admit that since podcasts have come on to the scene I listen less to audio books. One reason for that is that running LearnOutLoud requires me to screen a number of podcasts. But that’s not the only reason. Indeed there are some reasons why I’ve gravitated towards podcasts.

First, podcasts are easier to listen to in bite-sized chunks. When you only have 10 or 15 minutes it’s often easier to throw on a podcast and listen to it in its entirety than it is to pick up an audio book mid-stream. I particularly like podcasts that are around the magical 15 minute mark as it’s just about the right amount of time to hold my attention.

Another benefit of podcasts is the ability to have them downloaded automatically. It’s nice to sit down at my computer and see that I’ve got a dozen new podcasts ready to listen to. With audio books I have to go out and download them manually and because of the larger file size it typically takes 10-15 minutes to pull the files down. If the audio book is on CD and I want to move it to my iPod the process is even more involved as I have to rip the CD to my computer first and then transfer it over.

A final benefit of podcasts is their timeliness. There is certain information that is much better consumed right away (e.g., news and current events, sports, etc.) and this is where podcasting shines. Audio books (like books in general) just can’t compete because of the long lead times required for publishing. Podcasting itself is a great example of this. If I had to wait for an audio book about podcasting…well, I’d still be waiting. Yet there are a dozen of podcasts where I can learn about podcasting itself and there have been for some months now.

But this certainly isn’t a one-sided fight as there are several advantages to audio books as well. A primary one is sound quality. I’ve probably only listened to a handful of audio books in the last few years with truly bad sound quality. On the other hand, I think there are only a handful of podcasts out there that have truly excellent sound quality. This will improve over time but for now the “home brew” nature of many podcasts certainly detracts (at least somewhat) from their listenability.

Another advantage of audio books is their longer length. Wait, wasn’t shorter length an advantage of podcasts? The key here is the context in which you’re listening in. If you’re at the gym running at the treadmill it can be a bit annoying to have to change podcasts every 10 minutes. In that context audio books are probably a better bet. The same goes for long car trips. If you have a longer chunk of time to listen in you will likely favor the continuity of audio books.

Finally I think that in general the consistency of audio books is a lot higher. Because they are professionally produced you are more likely to have a good listening experience. Podcasts are much more of a wild card. While I’ve heard some outstanding ones, I’ve also heard some truly terrible ones as well.

In the end it’s a bit of a toss-up and pretty much just depends on what you’re looking for at any given moment. They serve to complement each other and at the same time the competition between podcasters and audio book producers for your listening time will end up improving the quality of each. In the end, we as a listeners will end up being the ultimate winners in this battle.

September 23, 2005

The Night the Lights Went Out In Minneapolis

I’m back in Minneapolis this week visiting my parents. On Wednesday night we had a series of severe storms that tore through the metro area. It knocked out the power at my parents’ house for almost 24 hours. And the cable still hasn’t been restored which means we have no phone or Internet…

So Wednesday night when all the lights were out and we got tired of listening to the storm coverage on the radio what is there to do? After all, there wasn’t any TV or Internet and reading by candlelight was a bit difficult (my parents aren’t big candle people and we only had one in the house). Well, you probably guessed it…I spent my time listening to audio books. 🙂

The only real reason why I’m posting this is that going without electricity for a night gave me a newfound appreciation for what blind and visually impaired people go through. There are so many things that we do in daily life that require sight. And often we take our vision for granted until that time when we don’t have it. We’ve done some work to help out the the blind before and looking to do even more in the future. One thing that we’re trying to set up is a way for visitors to this site to donate their used audiobooks and have them find their way to charities like the Blind Children’s Learning Center.

In addition to children there are approximately 5.5 million elderly people who are blind or visually impaired (according to the American Foundation for the Blind). As our society ages this number will grow larger. Audio books represent a great opportunity for these individuals to continue on with their love of learning even if they are unable to read comfortably anymore.

Helping blind and visually impaired people is just one of the reasons we’re so passionate about what we do. We hope to be able to make it even easier for these people to get access to material that will enrich their lives.

Have a great weekend and be sure to take a minute this weekend to be thankful for the gift of sight. It’s definitely something that most of us take for granted in our lives.