The Robots Will Tell Us Stories Now

      They haven't been around very long, but podcasts have become ubiquitous. How ubiquitous? Well, check out the title of this upcoming book: Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You).

     New simple-to-use tech has given everyone with an idea (half-baked or not) the ability to create a sonic publication. Thanks to Descript you don't even really know how to edit audio anymore. 

     If you're one of those people who listens to podcasts while walking/driving/cleaning/soaking in the tub/et cetera, you may have thought: "Man, I wish I could turn printed articles into podcasts." Well, guess what. A guy named Chris Kinniburgh had the same idea and turned it into an incipient service called listenlater.fm.

     A few technical hoops are involved, but basically listenlater.fm lets you save articles from the web, have them converted into audio files, and then listen to them via your chosen podcast player. The narration on these files isn't awesome -- imagine having Siri read the paper to you -- but it's pretty good. Just the thing if you'd like to catch up on some longreads while folding the laundry.