Roger Ebert “Speaks” on Oprah [VIDEO]
In 2006, film critic Roger Ebert underwent surgery to remove cancer near his jaw. There were complications and his carotid artery burst. As a result, Ebert can no longer eat, drink or speak. At least, he can no longer naturally speak. Today, on Oprah, Ebert showed off his new computerized voice. This wouldn’t be that amazing; after all, computer-generated voices have been around since the original Macintosh debuted in 1984. What makes Ebert’s new voice special is that it was formed entirely out of his old voice.
While his fans and admirers have been following Ebert since he lost his voice in 2006 — he has never stopped writing, and if anything his writing, already a cut above, has only improved — many people were only aware of what the former At the Movies co-host has been going through after reading Chris Jones’s incredible profile in this month’s Esquire. If you haven’t read the piece, take the time and read it. It’s truly remarkable.
On Oprah’s annual pre-Oscars show today Ebert appeared with his wife Chaz. It’s here that Ebert showed off his new voice. Videogum offers up this clip from the show, which features Ebert’s new “old” voice:
The Tech Behind the Voice
As Ebert himself described in his blog, the new voice was created for him by a Scottish company called CereProc. Like Alex, the new voice that Apple created for Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard, CereProc’s technology makes voices that sound more human, have more emotional nuance and don’t sound as stilted and, well, computerized as computerized voices in the past.
To create his custom voice, CereProc used audio commentary tracks that Ebert recorded for DVDs like Casablanca, Citizen Kane and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Fun fact: Ebert wrote the screenplay for BtVotD).
The end result, which was heard most prominently in Ebert’s Oscar predictions (we’re working on getting that clip uploaded), is pretty remarkable. Ebert is still using Mac OS X’s Alex voice for most of his computerized communication, but hopefully his new Roger voice can be tweaked and finessed to take its place.
Visions of the Future
Roger Ebert’s journey and his use of technology has highlighted just how far accessibility tools have come in the past decade, thanks to technology. He found CereProc on the Internet — they make pre-made voices that people can buy to use on their computers.
Android 1.6 introduced text-to-speech functionality in multiple languages. Android 2.0 and beyond will continue to build on this engine.
While text-to-speech isn’t built into the iPhone (a built-in screenreader, VoiceOver, is), third-party programs are available.
Every version of Mac OS X has included text-to-speech support and Microsoft Windows also supports TTS. Just as voice recognition software is getting better and better, text-to-speech, too, is becoming more natural and features better patterns and cadences.
The publicity surrounding Roger Ebert’s new voice and its technology will hopefully spur some investment and innovation into these services.
What do you think of Roger Ebert’s “new” voice?
Reviews: Android
Tags: cereproc, digitized speech, oprah, roger ebert, software, tech, Text to Speech
$2 Sensory chip could give toys (and other products) improved speech recognition, additional capabilities
Sensory Inc. may stay behind the scenes most of the time, but the company’s speech recognition chips are already used in toys from JVC, Mattel, Hasbro and others, and it’s now announced a new chip that could lead to toys with some significantly improved capabilities. Costing just $2 apiece (in quantities over 100K/year), the company’s NLP-5X chip not only boasts support for speech recognition and text-to-speech that lets it “generate thousands of voices on the fly,” but support for sound samples and MIDI playback as well. What’s more, the chip uses what’s described as an “incredible algorithm” that allows it to be on all the time and simply listen and activate itself when needed — or when you least suspect it. Of course, while toys are one application, the company also sees the chip being used in a whole range of other consumer electronics — Sensory even gives the example of an internet-connected oven that could let look up a recipe and then have a conversation with your oven about how you’d like to cook it.
$2 Sensory chip could give toys (and other products) improved speech recognition, additional capabilities originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
ASUS DR-950 9-inch touchscreen e-reader brings text-to-speech and internet browser
ASUS is suddenly all chatty with its plans to enter the e-reader market in 2010. Just yesterday we got word of a 6-inch color (claimed to be OLED by InGear) e-reader from ASUS by the name of DR-570 headed to retail before the year is through. Now we’ve got details of a second ASUS e-reader, dubbed the DR-950 that should arrive sooner. This time we’re looking at a 9-inch Sipix panel with 1,024 x 768 pixel resolution pushing 16-levels of gray just like the Jinke reader unveiled at CES. The touchscreen DR-950 features text-to-speech (based on Svox engine supporting 26 languages), a web browser that works in portrait or landscape modes, a virtual keyboard and handwriting input, a RSS reader, and dictionary (with expandable database) with real-time translation. Spec-wise, the 222 x 161 x 9-mm / 370-gram reader packs WiFi and HSPA (WiMax is optional) data radios, 3.5-mm headphone jack and stereo speakers, with 4GB of internal memory and SD Card expansion. Supported formats include PDF, TXT, Audible, MP3, and unprotected ePub. Not bad ASUS, not bad. Now let’s see some content partners, eh? See it pictured browsing the web after the break.
Continue reading ASUS DR-950 9-inch touchscreen e-reader brings text-to-speech and internet browser
ASUS DR-950 9-inch touchscreen e-reader brings text-to-speech and internet browser originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Teclast enters the e-book fold with the K3 Talking Portable Library
Teclast enters the e-book fold with the K3 Talking Portable Library originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Blio seeks to take digital reading in a new, more inclusive, and colorful direction
As if we didn’t have enough pretenders in the ebook space, here’s Ray Kurzweil with a new format of his own and a bagful of ambition to go with it. Set for a proper unveiling at CES in a week’s time, the Blio format and accompanying application are together intended to deliver true-to-life color reproductions of the way real books appear. Interestingly, the software has been developed in partnership with Nokia, in an effort to turn Espoo’s phones into “the smallest text-to-speech reading devices available thus far,” though apps are also being developed for the iPhone, PC and Mac. The biggest advantage of this format might actually be behind the scenes, where the costs to publishers are drastically reduced by them having to only submit a PDF scan of their books, whose formatting remains unchanged in Blio. We’ll be all over this at CES, but for now you’ll find more pictures and early impressions over at Gizmodo.
Blio seeks to take digital reading in a new, more inclusive, and colorful direction originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Amazon beefing up Kindle’s functionality for vision-impared users as B&N’s Nook stays silent
While the Amazon Kindle’s text-to-speech functionality might seem like a gimmick for some, it’s anything but for blind, vision-impaired and dyslexic users. Unfortunately, the device’s accessibility so far hasn’t extended to the menus. That’s set to change next year, however, with Amazon promising to release an audible menuing system for navigating the unit look-free. Amazon’s also prepping a new “super size” font, that doubles the current largest font in height and width. It all sounds great, but it also seems like a subtle dig at Barnes & Noble, whose brand new Nook reader is skipping out on text-to-speech (for this generation, anyway). Barnes & Noble claims that it’s due to the sub-par experience on “other devices,” but for now that means the Kindle might just be most accessible dedicated e-reader around — at least once this new software rolls out, supposedly by summer 2010.
Amazon beefing up Kindle’s functionality for vision-impared users as B&N’s Nook stays silent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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TomTom to bring free lane guidance, text-to-speech, iPod control to iPhone GPS app
TomTom’s probably still dizzy from the hit that Google laid on it just a few days ago, but it has somehow managed to get its bearings long enough to announce that a slew of gratis updates are incoming for its highly-hyped iPhone navigation app. Following in Navigon’s footsteps, the outfit has today stated that a free update has been submitted to Apple for approval, and when (er, if) it clears Cupertino’s ambiguous review process, it’ll deliver advanced lane guidance, text-to-speech, “Help Me,” updated map / safety cameras (in select European nations) databases, customizable audio warnings and iPod player control. Not a bad list of additions for the grand total of $0.00, but we wouldn’t expect anything less given the lofty admission price.
Continue reading TomTom to bring free lane guidance, text-to-speech, iPod control to iPhone GPS app
Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Storage
TomTom to bring free lane guidance, text-to-speech, iPod control to iPhone GPS app originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.