Stephen Hawking's speech synthesizer now free/open software

boing
1

[Read the post]

1 Like
2

I’d give the nerds about a month or so before they use it to make it sing a duet with Hatsune Miku

2 Likes
3

A month? Why so pessimistic?

I give it a week before there’s a NodeJS bot dumping auto-tuned rap-battles into SoundCloud based on the hour’s top news-stories.

2 week before @jlw has it pumping out one-liners from Big Trouble in Little China.

Dollars-to-donuts it’ll be in Emacs before the day is out.

7 Likes
4

The Wired article actually says

You will need a PC running at least Windows XP—and there are no plans to bring ACAT to Macs.

The github repo for ACAT says

It is written in C# using Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and .NET 4.5 and runs on Microsoft Windows 7 or later.

5

Windows 7 or later does not seem to include XP.

6

Yeah; there are some mixed messages; but it would certainly seem to be not be solely limited to Windows XP.

Wouldn’t it be “amusing” to discover that Hawking has been running Microsoft Bob the whole time?

4 Likes
7

Do not want to rain on anybody’s parade here, but the Speech synth core (or text to speech core) , is not I repeat NOT in there, for obvious reasons, its not Intel’s, and Mr Hawkin’s voice is a unique variant of the Prose2000/DECtalk software, and probably (obviously) does not want anyone to impersonate him.

3 Likes
8

It’s a Klatt architecture system, like my DECtalk card. People have been making these things sing for decades.

9

Yeah I realized that a few minutes after my fail comment

10

How can it fail when it evokes so many happy memories?

11

“Terrific, a six-demon bag. Sensational. What’s in it, Egg?”

12

So I take it that it’s ‘free’ as in ‘speech’ not as in ‘beer’?

13

This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.