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Japanese Lab Creates 'Da Vinci' Voices
Mikki writes "Using methods employed in criminal investigations, the Japan Acoustic Lab has analyzed the skeletal structures of Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa's faces to replicate how their voices would have sounded." While Da Vinci is cool, I can think of a slew of other deceased notables worth talking with as well.
*is brutally killed before finishing the meme*
-:sigma.SB
WARN
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
1) Promotion of lame movie.
2) IE 6 Only.
Please don't post this sort of crap (that's so hard to watch) again.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
how will bone structure determine regional accent?
If you make assumptions about where someone was brought up and who by, this kind of thing could work - but let's see a blind test. Let someone do a recording of their voice, get these guys to analyse their facial structure (in silence) and see if their prediction matches reality. It's easy to say what dead people noone alive has heard sounds like.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
While Da Vinci is cool, I can think of a slew of other deceased notables worth talking with as well.
Yeah, um.. you won't actually get to talk with them though, you'll just get to figure out what their voices might have sounded like. Sorry if that ruins it for you.
Nyhetsankaret.com -- det bÃsta av Sveriges Nyhetssido
Mike Tyson ;)
I'd rather know what they'd have to than how they'd sound saying it.
Spam's lame, too.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
No wireless. Less paint than Monet. Lame.
Probably doesn't work too well for eunuchs either, :).
Ron Howard hits ceiling, tosses phones, when it turns out DaVinci sounded a whole lot like Harvey Fierstein.
he had one of those high pitch girl voices a man shouldn't have!
How would they even know if they were correct? Sure DaVinci was a bright man, but even basic recording was hundreds of years after him.
Mind you, it would be funny if he sounded like Tom Hanks.
Could we please please pretty please have a ban on the use of the name "da Vinci" for at least a year?
I'm totally overmarketed.
The tragic thing is that I was a big fan of the man himself until that trashy novel came out.
Give them 5 years and you'll see humanoid robots impersonating Da Vinci (looking, walking and talking like him) or other deceased personalities.
Analyze the facial features of what is a Da Vinci painting, make the skeletal structure of a painting, and analyze it to see how would a Da Vinci painting sound if it could say something?
That sound kinda farfetched to anyone?
Plus, why take on the easy job? Let'em try and analyze what a Picasso painting would sound like...
I want to know what he would sound like :p
Well, as other posters have pointed out, the site is IE6 only...
But apart from that, read this quote, and draw your conclusions:
The Japanese have been weird about the Mona Lisa for a long time. I remember seeing something on TV 10 or more years ago about a device to simulate Mona Lisa' voice. People were getting plastic surgery to look like Mona Lisa (don't think it was just woman either).
he reveals: "Luke, I am your father!"
His hack of a son, copied his dad in Empire during the jungle scene where he cuts of Vaders head to reveal his own face when the mask blows off in a puff of smoke. At which point, the MPAA stepped in to sue Luke for copy infringment of the Mona Lisa, claiming derivative work. Not to be left out, RIAA is sueing the maker of the recording, Mark Hamill, and the dead grandmother of a nine year old girl who heard the recording as she passed by a neighbor playing to it on their computer. The device used, "ears", have been declared a hacking device of digitial property and hackers are terrorists, so everyone involved will be sent to gitmo. Obi-won wimpers about all being lost but yoda chimes in saying "no, there is another". Not that there's been a poll, but I think he was refering to the cowboy neal because if their isn't a plan b, there's always an option d.
http://promotion.msn.co.jp/davinci/voice.htm
Cracking "The Da Vinci Code" could have been easier -- well, maybe -- if the characters had enlisted the Japanese lab which has "recreated" the voices of Leonardo and Mona Lisa.
Using methods employed in criminal investigations, the Japan Acoustic Lab says it has analyzed the skeletal structures of the historical figures' faces to replicate how their voices would have sounded.
The voices are part of the intense promotion of the Hollywood film on Microsoft's Japanese site at http://promotion.msn.co.jp/davinci/voice.htm.
"We believe we were able to create the voices that are very close to the real voices. Perhaps it was really how they really sounded," the lab's chief Matsumi Suzuki says on the website.
A former police engineer who specializes in audio analysis, Suzuki says he assumed the woman in the legendary famed Leonardo painting was 168 centimeters (5 foot, 6 inches) tall, giving her a relatively low tone for a woman.
"We cannot tell exactly how tall she was. So we analyzed the length of her right middle finger" and looked at the average height of Italian women, he said.
Suzuki says he gave Mona Lisa a slightly nasal tone because of her relatively large nose.
For Leonardo, Suzuki made his voice around the time when he was 60 years old to match his bearded face in the famous sketched portrait.
"Because the beard covers his jaws in his portrait, we could not tell his exact skeletal features. We assumed that he had a heavy-jowled face, giving him a nice, bass tone," Suzuki says.
Suzuki, who frequently appears in popular media, has used his skills in a variety of fields, such as analyzing voices in purported recordings of Osama bin Laden.
He also collaborated with Japanese toy maker Takara Co. to create the smash-hit Bowlingual, which is said to interpret dog language.
For the toy, Suzuki received the 2002 tongue-in-cheek IgNobel Prize in the field of peace for scientific achievement that "cannot or should not be reproduced."
I remember something from about 10 years ago about people running an LP pickup through the grooves made in paint by a painters brush. The idea is that sound makes the brush vibrate and records the sounds in the paint.
Apparently they were able to get the sound of the word "blue" out of a patch of blue paint so this painter must have been talking to himself (or somebody else) while he worked.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Or does Leonardo Da Vinci kind of sound like Jabba the Hut?
-------------------------------------------
I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells.
-- Dr. Seuss
We now know what Da Vinci would have sounded like when he said:
"Someone please shoot Dan Brown."
I think this is a neat idea (although an obvious plant by some marketing parasites) but I have to ask: has anyone tested this?
Specifically: has anyone recorded a voice, recorded an MRI, and generated a voice? Did they match? Were they close?
barack to the future?
So it's no wonder that it seems like spam when these digg people post here.
22 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I like you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."
23 He then said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord, you know that I like you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him, "But I just fed them." He said to him, "I don't care, feed them again."
24 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you like me?" Peter was distressed that he was going to have to feed the sheep again and he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I like you." (Jesus) said to him, "My sheep need feedin', so get movin'."
25 To that Peter replied, "Look man, those sheep are full to the brim. I couldn't feed them any more if I wanted to." And he said to him, "So what, I want to see you work."
26 In that moment a shepherd with a herd of one thousand sheep passe by. And Jesus said to him, "Yo, shepherd! I'm Jesus, the son of God; you might have heard of me. Mind if I borrow your herd for a moment?" And he said to him, "No problem, go ahead."
27 And Jesus pointed to the borrowed herd and said to Peter, "Those sheep don't look fed to me. Get your lazy ass moving!" And the shepherd said to him, "Whoa, Jesus. You're a real dick."
Excerpt from one of the Dead Sea Scrolls entitled "Jesus was a dick and unlike those sycophantic apostles I have the guts to write it down", accredited to an author only known as "Bob".
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Always using their technologies the right way... wow!!!
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
Man. The possibilities for humor with technology like this are almost limitless.
In order to accurately figure out what somebody's voice might have sounded like -- minus unknowable unique accent quirks -- would require a DNA sample and technology we don't yet have(1).
(1) Namely, vastly faster computers that can take some source DNA and quickly "grow" (protein unfolding, etc) an adult human being in simulation, then send the right signals to the nerves to make virtual speech. Complicated, yes, but doable in a couple decades thanks to accelerating progress.
Power to the Peaceful
"Leonardo , I *really* need to go to the toilet! Now!"
BRAAAIINNSSS!!!!
Well, that, or "Send more acoustic researchers."
I'd also be rather interested in experimenting on Osama bin Laden's facial structure. With a baseball bat, that is...
;)
Ok, mod me down as dumb, if you can, but it had to be said.
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
The Mona Lisa was painted on wood. Not much chance of "enough of the knock-knock jokes, you silly cow, this is supposed to be a serious portrait" spoken with a Tuscan accent.
How many real criminals got away with real crimes while the boys in the lab were abusing the facilities for something so pointless?
Never mind, if the Japanese are anything like the rest of the world, they probably just hassled a few extra motorists.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
and Get back to work on the robotic woman.
...everyone knows Da Vinci had a lisp, walked funny, and had a penchant for "show tunes"... (eyes roll)
... and structure of someone who is still alive and see how close they get.
I think he'd have been very interested indeed in the maiden flight of the Airbus A380 yesterday, which received NO coverage whatsoever on Slashdot (stuff that matters!) and would be pissed off by this lame article about some fools trying to cash-in on his name (stuff that matters not).
"Japanese Lab Creates 'Da Vinci' Voices"
But can the voices correctly pronounce 'Cadillac'?
Now we're one step closer to ending world hunger and saving the environment and... ...oh wait...
Now we can look forward to authentic Da Vinci-voiced endorsements for vacuum cleaners. Ah, what a glorious age in which we live.
Some people have been listening to Da Vinci for centuries.
How's that? Da Vinci was a brilliant man who left us not only some wonderful paintings but also a wealth of writings. To listen to the real Da Vinci, all you need to do is look at his art or read his writings -- carefully, with understanding, of course.
Hearing some lab's claimed reproduction of his physical voice really doesn't help us to understand the man or his thoughts.
"Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- B. Franklin
Please call him Leonardo, only Dan Brown calls him Da Vinci. I don't think Leonardo would have answered to it.
-- Make America hate again!
I hear dead people!
someone is actually trying to do something important. A time machine would be better.
"I... did not... have sexual relationships... with that woman... Ms. Lewinsky."
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
His name is Leonardo Di Ser Piero (Leonardo, son of Ser Piero), and he's from the town of Vinci (Da Vinci). Calling him Da Vinci is like calling Fred from accounting "From Accounting". Granted, it's no less common a mistake than refering to "silicone chips", and "nucular power".
Have they tried this on someone alive using like x-rays and what not for the skeletal structure and seen if it's even close?
1) William Shakespeare/Shaxberd--I'd love to get a few recordings of the Sonnets by this voice. 2) Julius Caesar--there is a highly detailed bust of him that would be perfect for this project 3) Marc Antony--ditto (with all the Roman Busts, it would be cool to have Shakespeare's play done in the "original" voices. 4) Van Gogh 5) The figure in the Shroud of Turin. 6) Elizabeth I 7) Queen Victoria 8) Oscar Wilde 9) Napoleon (The phrase "I want to see little things hitting each other!" comes to mind. 10) Just as a controll, Ronald Regan.
Apparently your vocal cords are also irrelevant.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
BRaAAaAaINS!!!! BRAaAAAaAINZZZ!!
... what would he say?
"Help me out of this box, I can't breathe in here! Help, let me out!"
"They can even sing, by squirting air through their meat."
- passion
I seriously doubt this is even close to what Da Vinci sounds like. The true test of this would be to take someone on this project who has never heard of Mike Tyson, give them a photograph of him, and see if they come close to what he sounds like. I suspect they wouldn't be even be in the same ballpark. I know Leonardo did a lot of anatomical drawings, but unless he managed to do a really, really detailed drawing of his own vocal chords, I suspect they're making a very rough guess.
for me, all I see is some music clips.
no voices.
They're using their grammar skills there.
not PC, but someone had to say it.
Embarrassingly, he sounded like Chico Marx...
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha... you can't-a fool me. There ain't-a no Sanity Clause."
Proverbs 21:19
since they're just paintings.
...
But, if they had access to Helium back then, now that would be interesting
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Netcraft is using this software to see how BSD would sound
I have finally figured this out why many of colleagues from India only want to be called by one name and why one never call them by their last name -- it is a similar system.
Apparantly, these voices will be barely audible through white noise, and will only be available in japanese video format. I hear that bad things happen when you become too engrossed in trying to figure it all out though.
The article will teach you many varriations of "we made it up."
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
A true advance in science
I've always wanted to know what Snoopy's voice sounded like....you never hear him talk in the cartoons. Now thanks to this revolutionary skeletal analysis technique, hearing his voice is within our reach.
And after that, I'd like them to map out Morn from Deep Space Nine. He never spoke either.
Great mysteries are about to be solved.
However, when this work is complete, these guys can devote their spare cycles to folding protiens..another worthy cause.
Huh?
Well they should try it on dead people who have had voice recordings of themselves to see how well these scientists can recreate a voice.
So THIS is now Tupac keeps coming out with albums posthumously...
This is the guy that did the "dog speech translator". Oooh, amazing science.
I'd be more amazed if he could match the voice of a living person from photos. Which, of course, could be verified.
Maybe he could get together with the guy who "records ancient sounds from clay pots". Then we could know what Vincent Van Gogh sounded like from his still lifes...
Be heard || Be herd
... talk with a lisp?