Put away your president bobbleheads and action figures. All you need now to play out your dream White House speeches is a smartphone.
A text-to-speech technology company released two free apps Tuesday that use the actual voices of President Barack Obama or former President George W. Bush to recite anything users type or say (the speech-to-speech version will cost you $2.99).
Even if the president hasn’t said anything close to what you’re instructing him to say, the app’s shareable results are somewhat convincing — much more so than other apps that attempt a similar trick. That’s because the speech-to-text technology behind the apps was developed with more than just amusing apps in mind.
iSpeech, the company that created the apps, has used speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies in numerous projects, including a text message and email reading app DriveSafe.lythat has been downloaded 12 million times.
Last week, iSpeech made its technology available for other app developers to license for their own products. The company made the Obama and Bush apps to show off what that technology can do.
“It’s quickly approaching the point where you won’t be able to recognize a human voice from a text-to-speech voice,” iSpeech CMO Yaron Oren says.
The app voices of Obama and Bush were created differently than iSpeech’s other voices; they were taken from publicly available voice samples instead of recorded for the purpose. To make the voices in most of its apps, iSpeech asks voice talent to record audio that it breaks down into all of the elements of letters and words. For this new app, the company used publicly available voice samples — like speeches — of Obama and Bush.
Fun? Undoubtedly so. Potentially more offensive than a bobblehead? Not a point that is lost on iSpeech.
“Obama can say things he’s never said before, in a voice that sounds like his own,” Oren says. “The whole idea of doing this is a bit controversial.”
More About: Bush, iSpeech, obama, Text to SpeechFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:42:28 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/PYT14rjKSxs/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/24/obama-bush-voice-apps/#comments
A text-to-speech technology company released two free apps Tuesday that use the actual voices of President Barack Obama or former President George W. Bush to recite anything users type or say (the speech-to-speech version will cost you $2.99).
Even if the president hasn’t said anything close to what you’re instructing him to say, the app’s shareable results are somewhat convincing — much more so than other apps that attempt a similar trick. That’s because the speech-to-text technology behind the apps was developed with more than just amusing apps in mind.
iSpeech, the company that created the apps, has used speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies in numerous projects, including a text message and email reading app DriveSafe.lythat has been downloaded 12 million times.
Last week, iSpeech made its technology available for other app developers to license for their own products. The company made the Obama and Bush apps to show off what that technology can do.
“It’s quickly approaching the point where you won’t be able to recognize a human voice from a text-to-speech voice,” iSpeech CMO Yaron Oren says.
The app voices of Obama and Bush were created differently than iSpeech’s other voices; they were taken from publicly available voice samples instead of recorded for the purpose. To make the voices in most of its apps, iSpeech asks voice talent to record audio that it breaks down into all of the elements of letters and words. For this new app, the company used publicly available voice samples — like speeches — of Obama and Bush.
Fun? Undoubtedly so. Potentially more offensive than a bobblehead? Not a point that is lost on iSpeech.
“Obama can say things he’s never said before, in a voice that sounds like his own,” Oren says. “The whole idea of doing this is a bit controversial.”
More About: Bush, iSpeech, obama, Text to SpeechFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Wed, 24 Aug 2011 12:42:28 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/PYT14rjKSxs/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/24/obama-bush-voice-apps/#comments
