One of the interesting features introduced with the Kindle 2 last month was the ability for the Kindle 2 to perform text-to-speech (TTS) on ebooks and read them out loud. There was a near immediate protest claiming that this would lead to all kinds of horrible consequences. Amazon responded by saying that it would provide the ability for this feature to be turned off selectively for individual ebooks. Well, according to Engadget, this TTS kill-switch has been thrown...

Random House now disabling text-to-speech function of Kindle e-books

Engadget reports that somewhere around 40 books published by Random House can no longer be read out loud using the TTS. This is really a shame. Although TTS can't compete with professional performances by audio book performers, the audio examples I heard sounded reasonably decent. And, I imagine it is something I would have used now and then when I wanted to continue reading but wanted to rest my eyes (long flights in oxygen poor flights come to mind). And, I'm sure sight-impaired people could really make use of TTS with ebooks.