HackerNoon Releases AI-Generated Synthetic Audio Player for Entire Library of 70,000+ Tech Stories
From now on, every story published on HackerNoon will include a synthetic audio player, through which users can select an AI voice to read the article aloud to them. This feature will improve accessibility for the vision impaired, and help improve time on site.
EDWARDS, Colo., September 27, 2022 (Newswire.com) - Today, HackerNoon Synthetic Audio is available for nearly every story submitted to the website, allowing readers to become listeners.
What is HackerNoon Synthetic Audio?
Since late 2021, HackerNoon has been working to add audio versions of each article published on our platform. To reduce audio generation time, the company built a tool to auto-generate synthetic audio as soon as articles are published. The tool is powered by AI, allowing transcripts of an article to be processed almost instantaneously.
Readers can choose from four different voices to listen to, with varying accents. Currently, every article is presented by English-speaking synthetic voices, but there are plans to expand the feature to other languages. It's also possible to change the speed of each audio track, allowing users to choose their own pace.
The Benefits of Adding an Audio Player
Accessibility for the Visually Impaired
Those that are visually impaired will now be able to easily enjoy all the content HackerNoon offers. People who are on-the-go don't have to stop in place just to read about their favorite tech; synthetic audio is about providing readers their own choice in how they enjoy HackerNoon stories.
Free Audio Transcription
HackerNoon contributors have the option to download the audio of their stories to repurpose as they wish.
Improving SEO and UX
Giving a listening experience to the reader will keep users on the page longer, improving the overall time on site.
How it Works
Synthetic Audio is automatically generated when a user submits their article. There are no extra steps they need to take to turn it on.
The reader can simply hit the play on the audio player at the top of the article. The article will be read from start to finish, with the user's desired speed and AI voice.
The Future of Synthetic Audio
HackerNoon will continue to develop and improve this feature as more articles are published. Work will be done to ensure older articles can benefit from synthetic audio as well, and further accessibility options shall be considered.
Through the use of AI-generated audio, HackerNoon seeks to help contributors share their love of tech with anyone, be they avid readers or enthusiastic listeners.
Source: HackerNoon
