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CLEMMONS, NC - To say that Moshe Landsman is a busy academic is a definite understatement. The professional psychologist, who directs a municipal service at a Bedouin Municipality in Southern Israel, also teaches Special Education at a teachers college in Beer Sheva - as well as teaching Psychology in Prishtina, Kosovo, where he spends one week out of each month in his academic work. To keep up with his almost impossible schedule as well as his truly daunting courseload, Landsman, an avid bicyclist, copes by converting his articles, books, and other teaching materials into spoken audio for listening during his commute, using TextAloud software, from NextUp Technologies (http://www.NextUp.com).

Landsman's discovery of TextAloud heralded a marked change in his daily life and previous routines. The software provided the literal gift of hours into a schedule in which time was his most valuable commodity, and did so in an easy PC program priced from less than $30 ($29.95 USD). The program, which he sampled in its trial version before moving on to purchase the full version almost immediately, suddenly enabled him to make use of the bicycling time he so enjoyed, while also directly adding to his invaluable and scarce 'reading' schedule several additional hours per week for absorbing articles, teaching materials, and more, by ear. Once he had installed the TextAloud program, he was now able to simply download what he required. He then used the program to easily and flexibly export the materials to text files as needed, and then to 'speak' the material to ensuing voice files, which were easily exportable to his iPod, computer, CD, or a variety of other portable devices (even iPhones, and more).

"I convert articles and books that I download through various databases and listen to them while riding to work," comments Moshe. "Using TextAloud, I convert the files to audio and listen on my MP3 player. It keeps me really up to date, and to some extent I can even prepare material for classes that way, as well."

Landsman discovered TextAloud thanks to a recent magazine article, and decided to try out the program's free trial, in hopes that he would open up some desperately needed free time. For the busy professor, the best part of his experiment was that the TextAloud program proved to be "one of the few software packages I have encountered that actually does what it claims to do," he comments. "I was looking for a way to keep up with the literature - and am an obsessive reader - so I am very happy using the auditory channel of input, and it maximizes my time use."

When he first tried the software, Landsman worried that the program's voices would prove to be unlistenable - too robotic or monotone. "I definitely had the image of metallic, robotic voices at first," he adds, "but this image was rebutted even during the trial version, as well as into my use of the full version with the optional Premium Voices, so it has certainly revolutionized the way I see Text to Speech."

The academic has also discovered that the program offers a multitude of easy and enjoyable features, "such as how to easily start a new article - or that it copies material for speaking directly to the clipboard as long as TextAloud is running," Landsman adds, "so things go very smoothly." He discovered that the software not only functioned well with a variety of text formats, but was equally adept at translating HTML into speech - a format he now exports frequently. Landsman now listens to most of his speech files on a generic MP3 player with 4 GB of space, providing him with plenty of room for his articles and other topics for listening while biking or driving.

"Ultimately, TextAloud has really made a profound difference in my life," Landsman comments. "I am sure it has at least doubled the amount of professional literature I can absorb. This makes me a better psychologist and, ultimately, a better professor as well!"

About TextAloud
TextAloud has been featured in The New York Times, PC Magazine, Writer's Digest, on CNN, and more. Hailed by critics and users alike, TextAloud is priced at just $29.95, and is compatible with systems using Windows (R) 98, NT, 2000, XP and VISTA. The program is available for fast, safe and secure purchase via /purchase.html.

NextUp.com also offers TextAloud with optional premium voices from AT&T Natural Voices™, Nuance®, Acapela® and Cepstral® for the most natural-sounding computer speech anywhere. Available languages include U.S. English, U.K. English, Indian Accent English, Scottish Accent English, Arabic, Cantonese Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Belgian Dutch, Faroese, Finnish, French, Canadian French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Russian, Castilian (European) Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

About NextUp.com
NextUp.com, a division of NextUp Technologies, LLC, provides award-winning Text to Speech software for consumers, business customers, educators, and those with visual or vocal impairment, or learning disabilities.

In addition to TextAloud, NextUp.com markets other innovative Windows software designed to save time and deliver vital information. NextUp Talker is an easy and affordable program that allows people who have lost their voices to use the latest in high-quality computer voices to communicate with others.

Note to Editors:

Evaluation copies of TextAloud are currently available upon request. To receive a review copy, or for more information on NextUp.com or TextAloud, please contact publicist Angela Mitchell at (904) 982-8043.

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