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Wednesday September 06, 2006

Text-To-Speech: Almost Perfect. Almost.

Computers

A few weeks ago I made the smart purchase of a Garmin Nuvi 350 GPS Navigator. It's awesome. The only reason not to get the 350 would be to get the 360 which includes Bluetooth so you can use it as a hands-free speakerphone.

One of the great features of the Nuvi is it's text-to-speech feature. With it, the unit will say "turn left on Main Street" instead of just "turn left." It's quite adept at correctly pronouncing many words.

Usually.

I programmed all of our relatives' homes into the unit so it would say "Arriving at grandmas" when we got to grandma's house. My daughter really loves this. To my daughter, my mother is "Nai Nai" (Chinese for grandmother) and it's pronounced "nigh-nigh," rhyming with "bye-bye."

So, as written, the Nuvi pronounced Nai-Nai as "Nay-Nay" (hey-hey). I tried changing the spelling to "Ni-Ni" but that was pronounced "Nee-Nee." I pressed on, trying "Ny-Ny."

This was the result:

"Arriving at New York, New York."

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September 06, 2006 11:44 AM PDT Permalink | |

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