NewsAloud Review
Don't be lazy
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You can buy it at RegNow for that price.
Easy to use. Good functionality.
Unnatural voice. Crude interface. Too expensive.
At first glance, I was quite impressed by the functionality and usefulness of NextUp Technologies' NewsAloud. However, after reviewing 15+ text-to-speech converters, I wasn't much impressed by the over-hyped 'human, natural-sounding voice'.
In fact, the voice is as robotic as any other text-to-speech/voice converter. If you're using Windows XP, open up your Narrator (Run>Narrator). Imagine a feminine-style voice of the narrator, and you'll have a fairly accurate idea of what the NewsAloud voice sounds like.
The interface is quite amateur; nothing like the clean-cut, smooth, Vista-style interfaces we have come to expect from applications nowadays. Expect a Windows 98 interface, with crude icons (truth be told, they look like they've been made in MS Paint).
The news-gathering capability was awesome, but there are thousands of other free programs that do that better. And you're hardly likely to pay $17.95 for a program that just shows you the news...
The voice was a real pain to hear. I'd much rather take those 2-3 minutes out of my time to read the news article, then have a metallic voice stutter it into my headphones, preventing me from continuing with whatever task I might be occupied in.
All-in-all, your $18 are better spent on a software that you really require, not on a news reader which can't read properly.