A few years ago, it was shocking when a computer-generated voice didn’t sound like an underwater answering machine. These days, social media like TikTok practically runs on synthesized voices.

Now you can generate your own lifelike voices for books, school and a ton of other functions. The TexTalky AI text-to-speech app is a lifelike speech generator with 128-plus languages. And you might be speechless to learn that you can get a lifetime subscription at the heavily discounted price of $37 (regularly $540).

The iPhone is renowned for its many accessibility features. Accessibility settings can make text on the screen bigger, buttons easier to identify, animations less jarring and sound easier to hear.

An accessibility feature that is useful for everyone is Spoken Content. You can have your phone read out loud anything you have on-screen. This feature was designed for people who have trouble reading small text, but you will find it handy even if you don’t — in lots of situations.

You can have recipes read to you while your hands are busy cooking, quickly hear how to pronounce a word you don’t know — that’s what I use it for most of all — and more. You can even hear what you’re typing as you write.

Here’s how to turn on Spoken Content.

Text-to-voice software doesn’t have to sound like a robot reading a script. Text-to-speech app TexTalky uses artificial intelligence to produce amazing results. And right now, a lifetime subscription to TexTalky is on sale for $37 (regularly $540).

If you’re like us, you’re probably already looking forward to next year and how it could be better — in more ways than one. If you’re interested in learning a new language or earning a new certification to beef up your resume, look no further than this roundup of skill-building apps and software.

With Cyber Monday pricing, you can get them for an extra 40% off with code CMSAVE40 for a limited time.

Reading is essential to daily life and staying informed, but so is listening. In an age of podcasts, audiobooks and multitasking, many of us have adjusted to take in information through our ears while our eyes are busy doing other things.

Plus, some people simply retain information better through listening rather than reading. That was the case with Cliff Weitzman, who struggled with learning because of dyslexia. So he built a simple but powerful tool that makes any text instantly listenable.

I find myself using the text to speech function on Mac OS X far too much. Having my Mac read articles and emails out loud to me allows me to multitask and do other things — like edit awesome videos for Cult of Mac — without ignoring important messages.

But did you know you can even save those text to speech recording for listening at a later time?

In this week’s Quick Tips video, I’m going to show you how to turn text into a spoken track and save it into iTunes, allowing you to find save your favourite articles and listen to on your iPhone.

Famous astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has a better way to talk now, thanks to a new custom predictive text software upgrade from SwiftKey and Intel Labs. The technology that Professor Hawking was currently using was going on 20 years old, and needed a fix to help him communicate and work faster and more efficiently.

His life-long motor neurone disease of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has necessitated his use of communications technology, and this new system will allow him to choose words rather than individual letters, which lets him type less than 20 percent of all needed characters in his messages. It also makes him 10 times more efficient with other computing tasks like browsing the web, working with files, and switching between tasks on the computer.

Ever wanted to hear Siri declaim “Luke, I am your father” in 32 different languages?

In a blog post by the developers behind the daily Spanish word app Vocab Ninja, you can click on all of Siri’s different voices — overwhelmingly female-gendered, interestingly enough — in both standard and enhanced audio resolutions.

Text-to-speech is great. But have you ever wished that it could be a little more creepy? As in, child’s-voice-coming-out-of-your-computer creepy? Well, you’re in luck. Thanks to a service designed to help kids to communicate, you too can make your iPad talk in the voice of a little girl or boy. Shiver.

I’ve been driving a lot lately, and have been wanting to listen to ebooks on my iPHone as I do so. It’s fairly simple to turn on VoiceOver and have what sounds like Siri read my books to me, but honestly? She’s a terrible narrator. The VoiceOver voice is heavily robotic, and it’s difficult to understand what’s being read to me most of the time, so I end up giving up or contemplating purchasing an audiobook from iTunes.

But I’d really like to just continue the ebooks I already have on my iPhone while I’m driving. That way I can listen to them while in the car, but actually read them when I’m not. NaturalReader just might be part of the solution I’ve been looking for, so I figured I’d share it here with you.