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Star Trek's LCARS Could Become Your Virtual Assistant (cnet.com)
H_Fisher writes: It has arguably inspired many other technological innovations in the fifty years since its premiere, and now another Star Trek-inspired touch could be coming to your device: the voice of Majel Barrett from the Star Trek universe's LCARS computer system. CNET reports: "The voice of LCARS was provided by Majel Barrett, who was married to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Although Barrett sadly passed away in 2008, she took several roles on the show over the years, including nurse Christine Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series and Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to a tweet by the official Roddenberry account yesterday, this has provided enough phonetic data to perhaps get Barrett's voice appearing in upcoming new 2017 TV series Star Trek: Discovery -- and maybe even a Siri-like virtual assistant."
I've always been able to spot other trekkers by how people react to me referring to any digital female voice as Majel.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Just wait till they realistically "reanimate" the original crew.
Although Barrett sadly passed away in 2008, she took several roles on the show over the years . . .
Wow, although she was dead, she still took on several roles?!? She must have been one amazing lady!!
Great journalism skills you got there.
Of course, having a slightly choppy computer voice is one way of overcoming the uncanny valley. Holding a conversation with a dead person might be unnerving for some people. Hearing the little clips and weird tone changes as the voice is reassembled would be a constant reminder that you're actually talking to a computer, not a person, and might be of some comfort.
So we are recreating the voice of a dead person as a computer voice to honor the person who actually gave a computer a human voice. That's no uncanny valley, that's a first class uncanny round-trip!
bickerdyke