Audio reader

	I am an engineering student set to graduate in may. This being my last semester, I have several slots open for any elective I want to take. Some of my friends chose to take nothing clases such as drawing 101 or CAD (which they already know). This is perfectly reasonable seeing as we all have our "captone" projects consuming any free time we thought we had. I however have recently become intrigued with design research and decided to take an ethnography class as well as a class on sociological statistics. So how is it going so far? Well... I'm only in week two and the amoun t of reading material is a shock to my system. I am reading about 150 to 200 pages a week and it is a real struggle. It isn't that the material is hard or boring (quite the opposite), its that between capstone, my other classes, my family, sleeping, etc. It is hard to find time to sit down and read for an hour or two. Now I finally get to my solution... I envision a handheld device that can scan text, convert it to readable text, and have a simulated voice concert that text to audio. This way, you could have any material in a print medium converted to a track that you can listen to while you commute, work out, excercise, etc. I know the technology exists to make this happen, it is just a matter of combining them into a usable product. Perhaps an attachment to the ipod? Ps... I wrote this on my blackberry so please forgive any typos -Chris Loughnane