Talking e-book not too far off

The Amazon Kindle has certainly made a fair amount of waves since its release, but Iranian inventor Ramin Sedighi claims to have developed a talking e-book that allows readers to move a stylus across words, pronouncing the selected words out loud. In addition, the system claims to “explain” pictures, although I am extremely skeptical about such capability. Shapes maybe, but something as complex as a picture? Can you actually cram in that much processing power to tell the difference between a child’s doodle and some form of abstract art? That aside, other features include a USB port, audio out, 512MB memory and an SD memory card slot. There is no word on pricing, although it has been slated for an early 2008 release.