Meet the Voice Behind Siri 114
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."
Re:Slashdot... 72 hours behind CNN... (Score:5, Informative)
No one cares if stuff like this comes late. I'd be more concerned about using Facebook as a news source.
Yes (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Susan Bennett?? (Score:5, Informative)
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.