ElevenLabs, a company that's leveraging AI to make various audio products, has announced the availability of its Reader App worldwide on iOS and Android for free. What's great about it is that it reads to you with a natural-sounding voice so you don't have to listen to robotic audio anymore.
There are a load of voices to choose from but upon signing up you'll be given a handful to choose from, to change the language after sign up just go to the Voices tab and select one from a long list.
The app comes with several texts preloaded including Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Match Girl, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - A Scandal in Bohemia.
To upload your own texts, just press the + button on the home page and select from Write Text, Paste Link, Import File, or Scan. Importing a File allows you to upload EPUB, PDF, and TXT files. The app also includes OCR support so if you have a PDF of a book which is just image scans, the app is clever enough to read the text.
There are a few restrictions when it comes to using this app. You must be using Android 7.0+ if you use an Android device and any devices with an unlocked bootloader or that have been rooted cannot use the app for security purposes. The content in the app is also only for personal use so there is no option to download or export it and the audio can't be distributed or used commercially.
Nevertheless, if you like listening to audiobooks, the ElevenLabs Reader App is a great alternative and should save you quite a bit of money if you're content with freely available public domain books. If you want to download public domain books, check out Project Gutenberg or Standard Ebooks.
Source: ElevenLabs
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