I for one welcome our Google overlords. I mean, let’s be real…they’re going to take over the world. Today, they came one step closer with the purchase of Phonetic Arts. This company specializes in software to give computers (typically in video games) the ability to generate natural, expressive speech.
It’s no secret that your Android phone can translate your speech to text remarkably well. And there certainly are plenty of apps out there that can give your phone the capability to speak to you (Vlingo, for example, has the ability to read your incoming texts or emails), but there are still issues. Not only is it not built-in to Android, but we’ve all heard that robotic, computer voice. According to Google’s blog, they are looking to improve voice output drastically, and that’s where the purchase of Phonetic Arts comes in. They’re increasing their investments in this issue, so we can look forward to big improvements on that front.
[via IntoMobile]