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Edge Web Browser Reads eBooks Aloud in Latest Windows 10 Build

Microsoft has suddenly developed an acute interest in ebooks.

First they added support for epub ebooks to its Edge browser, and then they teased an ebookstore, and now eWeek reports that MS has added text to speech.

Microsoft Edge is gaining the ability to read e-books aloud in the upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. Now, members of the Windows Insider early-access and feedback program can see, or rather listen to it, for themselves.

The company this week released Build 15025 for Windows 10 Mobile to insiders. Building on the new e-book functionality in the Edge browser, users can now go audible to consume literary content.

According to Microsoft’s announcement: "Just press the 'read aloud' button at the top-right corner after opening one of your e-books and listen to Microsoft Edge read you the book with focus on the line and the word being read along. This feature is also extended to all non-store EPUB files opened using Microsoft Edge."

The Edge browser onWindows 10 Mobile also gained Epub support in a recent update. It was introduced in build 14977, and currently supports only DRM-free Epub.

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Comments


Geoffrey Kidd February 12, 2017 um 5:22 pm

"currently supports only DRM-free Epub."

Prediction: Microsoft will add a proprietary DRM to the mix, just the way they try to do everything.


PCWrangler February 12, 2017 um 7:04 pm

Nice idea but the browser doesn’t even work yet. Constant surprise refreshes, ecommerce sites are unusable, no proper download management, unpredictable Reading Mode with no font control, no night mode. Adding in this feature to Edge is just undercutting the (very, very, very few) 3rd-party app developers whom already make eReaders (Freda, Bookviser, etc.) which already have this feature and the makers of other apps like Share to Speech. With Microsoft removing features at an alarming rate (removing the FM Radio app for e.g., whilst advising we (12 or 13) users to use "third party" apps) is indicative of a company COMPLETELY out of touch – so now the browser which already doesn’t work has even more buggy code, instead of being fixed, and Microsoft has just attacked half a dozen of their dwindling (already pathetically small body of) third party app developers – the people without whom this platform would’ve died on the table over a year ago. I use Windows. I use and love my Lumia 830. I desperately WANT Windows Mobile to work. But I’ve watched them parade past a procession of clueless clowns as new shiny heads of the Win10 experience and each has been just as out of touch and just plain stupid as the last. This feature would be good if it worked (which it doesn’t, it crashes all the time), if the browser already was stable (which it isn’t – oh boy is it not), and if this feature wasn’t sabotaging the few developers whom bothered to make the mistake of showing loyalty to the foolish disloyal bunch of closet iPhone users whom are running this one proud flagship of productivity into the ground.


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