Slashdot Mirror
Meet the Voice Behind Siri
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about an actress who claims to be the voice behind Siri. "Own an iPhone or iPad? Since Siri was released on the iPhone 4S in 2011, I bet you, like me, have been wondering who the real voice behind Apple Virtual voice assistant Siri is. She has provided weather forecast, restaurants tips and has power announcements at airport around the world. Well, the real voice behind Siri has been revealed, and she is Atlanta-based Actress Susan Bennett. While her name might not ring a bell to you, her friends , those who have worked with her, her family and even forensics expert recognized her voice, and says she is the real Siri."
That's incredibly fascinating. What's for lunch?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Hahahahahahahahahaa!
whoopdeeeffingdoo
did you forget to take your meds?
MUCH better looking.
Fix your crappy mobile site (and the new exciting alpha desktop version, come to that), and spend less time on this nonsense. Thanks!
This is up there with the Jane Barbie and Pat Fleet stories.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
I knew it wouldn't turn out to be some fat cow with a nice voice, because Apple was involved and they knew that she would step forward eventually.
And CNN is 48 hours behind facebook.
Which means that anything I see on Facebook is reported by Slashdot a week late. Holy fracking catfish, it's time to stop coming to this website.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Why would we want to know this?
I don't know, how many of you are there?
Ezekiel 23:20
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Finally, a face to my best friend and who I always ask to marry me.
If Apple related news are of no interest, why do they generate tons of posts claiming no one is interested in them? My suggestion, just ignore them.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
I'm glad this mystery has finally come to a close. I've had years of endless conversations (some actually broke out into fisticuffs) with co-workers about the likelihood that Siri was simply a generic wave form generated on a 1973 Rowland 385x tube synth (I love my old Rowland!!!1). One co-worker (Bryhan) argued that he could actually hear the pitch-shift in one of the particular tones of Siri's condescending passages suggesting it was in fact a male voice with some clever over-dubbing from magnetic tape (backwards). I've wondered about this for years and have lost much sleep over it. So glad it's finally came to light. Take that Bryhan, you insensitive clod!
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Hour after hour, she read nonsensical phrases and sentences so that the "ubergeeks" -- as she affectionately calls them; they leave her awestruck -- could work their magic by pulling out vowels, consonants, syllables and diphthongs, and playing with her pitch and speed.
So, does Susan really mean that her voice was picked apart and her phonemes were sampled and are being used for Siri's American English female voice? Phonemes are the basic building blocks of human speech (e.g. ah, eh, oh, ffff, etc)
Actually, in the CNN article about this that I read, she says exactly that. She says she sat in her home recording booth for 4 hours at a time for a whole year reading nonsensical phrases given to her so that they could later be pulled apart and analyzed.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
a better clip:
http://www.wimp.com/voicesiri/
coming from the article:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/17/4596374/machine-language-how-siri-found-its-voice
So is she like that voice actor for that video game who was all upset and making a stink for not being as rich as a movie star?
Mark Hamill?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
But she looks nothing like Jon Briggs?
But who on slashdot thinks a short interview with Saki Fujita (Hatsune Miku) would be interesting?
*Kicks feet up* Slow news day.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
She doesn't have a real keyboard. I don't think it's turning out too well for her.
Actually, in the CNN article about this that I read, she says exactly that. She says she sat in her home recording booth for 4 hours at a time for a whole year reading nonsensical phrases given to her so that they could later be pulled apart and analyzed.
Except I think Apple uses bigger units than phonemes as building blocks. I think there will be even quite a few complete words that are recorded. I don't know about the size of the Siri recording, but high quality voices on the Mac are several hundred megabytes each.
She must be a geocacher.
She says she sat in her home recording booth for 4 hours at a time for a whole year reading nonsensical phrases given to her so that they could later be pulled apart and analyzed.
Unfortunately Apple Maps interpreted those phrases as actual place names located in the Australian desert.
#DeleteChrome
Welcome to another general news site? You mean you haven't noticed what slashdot has become? We even got to learn about Sandra Bullock's new movie on slashdot. If you want the old slashdot you'll have to go back about 10 years or so in your browser cache... Me I'm just here because I'm too lazy to look for somewhere else, and some of the trolls are kinda funny.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
She must be really busy. How does she find time to do anything else?
Kriston
Be thankful to the French, they saved your ass from the muslims in 732 AD. How far back do you want to go?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
To Mel Blanc? That's pretty weird, man.
#DeleteChrome
Probably Elmer Fudd, specifically... :P
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
We found out here
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
It's a rip-off to provide people a reasonable wage for their services and likeness, then hope to benefit from that?
"Ehhhhhh... cock's up, Doc!"
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
She must sound very robotic in person. Either that, or the engineers that pieced together the phenomes did a very mediocre job. So far, the best text-to-speech synthesis I have heard comes from a recent update of Android. The pronunciation has improved significantly and the tone sounds much more relaxed and less stinted than the previous Android version as well as Siri.
Not what I was expecting. Raj meets Siri
These kinds of stories have been on /. for a long time. That's why comments of the form "this isn't news for nerds" are such a cliche.