One of the coolest things about Cingular's Voicemail system is it's ability to speed up playback of audio by pressing "6." Each press makes the audio playback faster...2x, 3x, 4x. It's great. I HATE voicemail, make no mistake, but at least it's bearable in double speed.

I noticed that when listening to audiobooks (m4b) files like those from Audible on my iPod Nano, I can also up the speed. It looks like about 1.5x normal speed. Not too bad, but it really makes a different. Now I'm addicted to it. The new iPod's implementation is nice because it speeds up the audio without changing the pitch of the voice. I speculate they are cutting out slices of sound, rather than true speed up.

I read pretty fast, but I've stopped watching most presentations and many podcasts because I just can't stand the pacing. However, while watching the PDC videos (http://microsoft.sitestream.com/PDC05/) I noticed (as did Steve Maine) that you can right-click on the video and select Play Speed->Fast and watch the presentations in 2x speed! (I'd prefer 3x or 4x). As a bonus, the demos (since they are WMVs) are also faster.

Now I feel like I can really get through the PDC sessions at my speed. I feel as if a whole wealth of information has been opened to me. Audiobooks will flow by at the same speed regular books do.

Now if only ABC would play "Grey's Anatomy" in 2x speed...