It is just a matter of creativity when it comes to implementing the various uses of the Raspberry Pi mini computer which costs you a mere $35 upfront. Michael Clemens stumbled upon the idea of using a Raspberry Pi as the main brain of a device which will read audiobooks aloud with a single push of a button. Pressing the very same button again will pause the audio playback, and if you want to skip to the previous track, just press-and-hold the very same button. Hmmm, it does make us wonder whether throwing in a few more buttons might do the trick for next, back and fast forward/rewind functions. Perhaps Michael wants to keep things as simple as possible.
This idea came about so that Michael’s 90-year-old grandmother-in-law is able to listen to audiobooks, considering how she is visually impaired at that age, making it rather tedious and time consuming to operate consumer electronics with more than a single button. Ebooks and other data will be stored on an SD card, and you can load books through a different method as well – by hooking up a USB flash drive. Supported audio formats include FLAC, MP3, and OGG Vorbis.
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