Talking Books

My top 6 reasons for selecting an audio book
Love reading and learning but just dont have the time? Think again
Did you know that audio books are becoming more and more popular each day? For example, in 2004, over $124 million worth of audio books were sold in the UK and $120 million in Germany during 2005. Experts say that this year the market is expected to rise by 20% in Europe, and audio books seem to be even more popular in the USA.
Heres why an audio talking book is the easiest, most convenient way to read a book

1) Saving time - time is precious to all of us, but listening to an audio book can be done at any time, wherever, whoever you are and no matter what youre doing there are endless opportunities to read. You can listen while travelling to work, walking the dog, doing the housework, gardening, relaxing etc etc.

On average in the USA, a recent survey has shown that a person is driving or travelling 1 hour 13 minutes daily, contributing to 440 hours each year this amounts to a huge 11 full time working weeks! Just imagine, by simply using your MP3 player during this time what you can learn, and with the talking book sites available now it cant be easier.

2) Carbon - footprints the manufacturing resources saved on Audio book downloads as to printed matter is fantastic, eliminating great amounts of carbon emissions throughout the publishing and transporting procedure, while using less valuable materials.

3) Audio books give you an opportunity to read and learn with out having to make time, not just at the end of the day when concentration and tiredness are issues. They are a great way to fill the dead wasted moments we all experience in our lives.

4) For older, ill or people recuperating, audio books are convenient with the freedom of use they offer. This makes audio books an excellent gift that they can enjoy again and again.

5) For blind people, disabled people or people with vision impairments the talking book can be extremely helpful, giving everybody the chance to enjoy a book and in many cases enabling the only method of independent reading to such persons.
By using audio books, education can be improved by these people and development of new and old hobbies and habits, yielding personal and professional enrichment of life in all aspects.

6) Audio books can help stimulate childrens reading, this can be achieved when accompanying a paper book, following the written and listening along with the audio at the same time, helping to improve skills of communication and vocabulary. Talking books can help to increase your childs love of reading and learning.

These few benefits of spoken books of which there are many more, should convince you that entering the world of audio books is the exiting new way to read and learn.
Hope this helps and that you get as much enjoyment as I do from this media

Regards Sandra and Ted

This article was composed by Sandra & Ted Wosko of The talking book site. I love reading and learning but just never had the time. I then found out about audio downloads. To my surprise I learnt that I could easily download not just music but also books-talking books on any subject, including my favourites and the ones I have been meaning to read for years. With the freedom of listening while I am busy doing other things such as the housework, cooking gardening and travelling I feel my time is more fulfilled. I was so impressed with what I found and downloaded that I decided to start my own site so that way I could share it with everybody else. Sandra http://www.thetalkingbooksite.com http://www.theaudiobookdownload.com

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Next Gen Televisions - Time to Get a Flatscreen?

If you're one of the Flintstones, you may still be using an old-fashioned curved-screen television. It's time to switch up to one of the new flat-screen televisions, don't you think?

All types of flat-screen televisions - from LCD display televisions to plasma TVs and projector units, are superior to old screens in a variety of ways. They don't lose definition when seen from the edges, making those least-desired seats in your living room perfectly acceptable. They also have significantly better resolution than old-style televisions. You may still be able to make out the pixels when you sit close, but because flat screen television sets use digital technology instead of less-accurate analog, they have a much superior picture, either in still frames or motion. And they are designed to work well with all the latest technology, from blu-ray to HDTV.

Up until recently, flat-screen sets have been on the expensive side, and a lot of people who needed a new set were waiting until the prices came down a little. Well - it's time. Small LCD TVs cost what an old-fashioned television would cost, if you could still find them, and even the large screens are often under a thousand dollars.

Before you buy, though, you need to understand a little bit about these new technologies.

LCD TVs use a liquid crystal display (LCD). Watches using this technology in monochrome have been around for decades, but only in the last ten years have researchers figured out how to create good-quality color liquid crystal that is reliable and long-lasting. An LCD TV has a nice thin appearance, and is basically a layer of liquid crystals sandwiched between transparent layers, with a backlight behind everything. The light shines through the liquid crystals, which have been polarized to show up in the different colors for your display - and there's your television. LCD TVs, when kept dim, use very little electricity, making them great for a darkened TV room. And they are among the cheapest flat-screen televisions you can buy.

LCD TVs do have a couple of drawbacks: first, older models are subject to "ghosting", where a dim image of a previously-displayed picture can be seen through the new picture; for this reason, it's wiser to buy LCD TVs new. They may also not be the best choice for a fast-paced game, as they often have a lag time that can mess you up. Blacks aren't always as sharp and dark as you might like, another reason to view in a darkened room. And if you mistreat it, you can wind up with "dead" pixels, where nothing will display because that segment of LCD has been destroyed. In most new LCD TVs, though, these problems are minimal or nonexistent.

Plasma TVs are also flat-screen televisions, but work very differently from LCD TVs and have a very different set of strengths and weaknesses. While you can lay an LCD TV on its back - carefully - without ruining it, a plasma television can be destroyed if it is laid flat. That's because instead of liquid crystals, it uses an inert gas sandwiched between two pieces of glass to create its display. Seals more easily come loose when the plasma TV is laid flat, allowing the gas to escape right then or over time.

Provided you care for it well and mount it properly, your plasma TV will function well for years. Unlike LCD TVs, plasma TVs display blacks very well (one selling point) and most will also work great for fast-refreshing games. Plasma TVs are often advertised as having the most realistic, highest-resolution, best-contrast display of all televisions, and this is probably true in almost every situation. Drawbacks include the expense - plasma TVs are not economical to make in small sizes, so you'll have to buy a large one - and the relative fragility of these televisions.

Both plasma and LCD TVs usually need good wall mounts. The last thing you want to do with your high-def TVs is install them, only to have them fall down a couple of weeks later! Quality wall mounts for HDTVs should include very good hardware, preferably made by the same manufacturer that produced the television, and excellent directions so you can easily put it up yourself. If you are at all worried that you will not install it right, it may be wise to have someone install it for you.

DLP TVs are the third major set of television displays in use today. These are also called rear-projection televisions, and while they are significantly cheaper than either LCD or plasma TVs, they also are larger and bulkier (though not as bulky as projection TVs were in the past) and have a somewhat less impressive display. Still, for most uses DLP TVs do fine, and because the light source in a DLP TV is usually replaceable by the consumer, they have a much, much longer lifespan.

Very similar to DLP TVs are projector units. These gadgets are often small enough to carry by hand, but can project a movie-screen-size picture if they have a high enough resolution. Similar in appearance to an old-fashioned slide projector, projector units are a great choice for a small area, for someone who needs a portable large television, or for someone who wants a television without having an obvious television.

Your Home Theater

Plasma TVs, LCD TVs, DLP TVs, and projector units are all high-def TVs, as long as they have the appropriate tuner. Once you have them set up, you need to think about other components of your home theater. After all, what's a large-screen television if you have to sit in your old uncomfortable couch to watch it?

Your first thoughts should be for electronics to enhance your viewing experience: good surround-sound speakers for a great theater experience, and universal remote controls to sit in comfort as you control everything in your environment yourself.

Once you have your electronics in line, go for the last thing on your list: theatre furniture. Your home experience, with comfortable chairs that don't fold up when you stand up, can be superior to one at the local movie house. Look for spacious, durable seats that can handle spills as well as roomy cup holders and somewhere to put snacks, remotes, and anything else you habitually keep close while you're watching your favorite flicks.

SNS Designs, Inc. owns a number of websites. They carry wide selection of High Def TV, LCD TV, Plasma TV. They offer the most popular in home theatre and a number of televisions that range from Sony, Pioneer to LG that everyone can afford.

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Flat Panel Displays - Beyond Plasma

The term set-top box will become something of a misnomer in the near future, as most displays will become too thin to allow a box to placed on top of them. As the price of plasma & LCD displays has plummeted and their image quality has improved, they are popping up in homes everywhere.

Although they are the darlings of the media and the generic for flat panel display in the minds of many, plasmas are about to be in a serious fight with other technologies for the flat panel crown.

LCD displays, seen on the desktop for years as computer monitors, and commonplace in smaller flat panel TVs, are finally increasing in size to the point they are becoming a rival to plasmas in the 42" 50 size range. Picture quality is similar to plasmas; however LCDs are immune to the burn-in that can affect plasma displays. This burn-in occurs when plasma units are used to display static images such as video game screens and stock or sports tickers.

Plasmas generally have an edge in the ability to produce deeper blacks and more saturated colors than LCDs. Plasmas are also better at producing full motion video than LCDs because of the response time of the LCD panels, although this difference is disappearing.

LCD TVs are a bit more expensive than plasmas at 42" and larger sizes, but they should last a while longer. Plasma displays should last 20,000 25,000 hours and LCDs should give 30,000+ hours of useful life. However, the latest generation of plasma displays from NEC, LG & others is claimed to have a 60,000 hour life. If that is an industry trend, the traditional lifespan advantage held by LCDs may soon disappear. This comes at a time when Sony and other major consumer electronics manufacturers are either abandoning plasma or reducing their plasma offerings. Others, such as Panasonic, Fujitsu and Pioneer are firmly commited to Plasma technology.

Currently Sony has a 42", NEC a 40", Sharp a 45", and Samsung a 40" LCD TV or display. Samsung also has the big one, a 46" that started shipping in early September of 2004. The Samsung 46" was the first consumer LCD video display to have a 1080 line native resolution. This allows it to display 1080p native when that format arrives for HDTV. The Samsung has been joined by Sony, Toshiba and others, to endow the mid 40" size category with some pretty solid LCD offerings. The largest consumer LCD TVs or monitors are the Sharp 65" and Sony showed a prototype 82" LCD from their Bravia line at the 2006 CES in Las Vegas.

Other technologies are on the horizon as well. One that has shown great promise is OLED, for Organic Light Emitting Diode. Developed by Kodak and Pioneer, this technology has been used for a few years in car stereo and cell phone displays. It's just about ready for prime time. Philips has shown a 13" unit, Samsung a 17", and Seiko-Epson has shown a 40" prototype.

OLEDs advantages are many. It actually emits its own light, so it requires no backlight and has better contrast than a traditional LCD. OLED displays have a wide viewing angle like a plasma display. Power usage is very low, less than 1/2 that of a traditional LCD display. At around 2mm deep, OLEDs are much thinner than either a plasma or LCD.

They have a refresh rate about 1,000 times faster than a traditional LCD, so they will be far superior for video applications. They have fewer parts than LCD or plasma and can be manufactured using a novel ink jet printing process. This promises to keep prices low as the technology is implemented. It is expected to see sub 20" displays in stores by 2006 with larger units following one to two years later.

Other promising display technologies on the horizon include SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) and carbon Nanotube. SED was developed by Canon, who began research into the technology in 1986. SED is basically the same principle as CRT, however there are important differences. The most important from a consumer standpoint is thickness. An SED display is only an inch or two thick, depending upon screen size.

The basic construction is two glass plates separated by a vacuum. One of the plates is coated with phosphors the other is mounted with electron emitters. Electrons are ejected when a voltage of about 16 to 18 V is applied to the emitters. These electrons are then accelerated by a higher voltage into a beam similar to that in a CRT display.

The visual advantages of SEDs are as for CRT displays, great color, deep black levels and quick motion response. These advantages, combined with the slim form factor, low cost and small power requirement should make for a real winner.

A unit shown by Toshiba at a Japanese trade show in April of 2005 even had its contrast ratio up to an incredible 100,000 to 1 by significantly reducing black luminance. Even if the specs were a bit inflated this would still amount to a fantastic contrast ratio, on the order of 5 times that of a traditional CRT. At one time, Toshiba indicated they would move to this technology for all displays over 40 by 2006. However, after a spectacular demo at 2006 CES by where they indicated a late 2006 debut, both Canon and Toshiba, Toshiba resheduled their release date for SED until mid 2007, ostensibly to allow them to produce lower cost SEDs.

There is another fly in the SED ointment too. On April 21st, 2005 US firm Nano-Proprietary has filed a suit against Canon in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas, alleging that the surface (SED) televisions that Canon plans to release violates a licensing agreement signed 5 years ago between the Japanese giant and Nano-Proprietary.

The pace of change in the home theater and entertainment display market has just kept accelerating. There are some promising technologies around the corner that will allow, as usual, higher performance, lower cost and more compact form factors. As prices for advanced technologies plunge and technology improves, it will make it even easier for the average person to have a fantastic media system almost anywhere in their home.

Steve Faber has almost 15 years in the custom installation industry. He is a CEDIA certified designer and Installer 2 with certifications from both the ISF and THX. His experience spans many facets of the industry, from the trenches as an installer and control systems programmer, and system designer, to a business unit director for a specialty importer of high end audio video equipment, a sales rep for a large, regional consumer electronics distributor, and principal of a $1.5M+ custom installation firm. He currently is senior sales engineer for Digital Cinema Design in Redmond, WA. For much more about flat panel technology, home automation and home theater, go to flat panel displays for your home and theater

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Is the iPod Video Really that Good?

The iPod video is popular due to its huge memory and the video playing capacity of the longer life battery. However, there are still some drawbacks to the design but whether you regard them as important depends upon your own liking of the iPod range.

The screen is bigger than the previous models which is great, but the surface is still easy to scratch, therefore you will still need a case to ensure protection.

Although the video image is excellent and the screen clarity may be easily compared to your TV set, there are still some problems with freezing video images. However, the fact that interference from sunlight or other light sources has been eliminated is excellent.

Although the battery life is improved overall, people complain that it is short in video mode. However, this is true of any resource intensive device, just ask laptop owners. You just need to be aware and remember to recharge regularly.

Anyway, this complaint can be balanced by the fact that the video is played with no flaws and looks really detailed.

The best new features of the video iPod concern the sound quality. It is clearer and louder with a bass that is stronger, my particular favorite.

Another good feature is the easy control, the video feature is generally accepted as being superb, but minor criticisms concern the interruption of the sound when switching between tracks.

The definite advantages of the ipod video may be gathered together, people point out that ipod video has a superb, thin and attractive enclosure with a great display. It also has the best sound, 15-20 hours of music, new clock and even the time in other parts of the world.

Conversely, the drawbacks or criticisms can be summarised as being the incompleteness of the video integration that suggests the experimental project aspect, absence of any new games, no changes in the interface, the smaller than expected screen as regards the video features edition and slow transfer of photos direct from the camera.

All this being said, you will find that the majority of people see the ipod video as the best music player around that has superior quality of sound and is just simply the best looking device money can buy.

After all if this is not the case then why has the Apple iPod range reached a state of almost complete domination in the portable music player market?

As a screen for the photo album, the clarity of the screen may win the competition with any TV sets screen. As a movie player, the iPod video is below the expectations, but it may be considered a great
step in the video technology.

Trevor Sadowski is an mp3 enthisiast and runs a website devoted to the features of the apple ipod video and other ipod models in the range.

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