• ZDNet, Friday, December 3, 2010 2:56 PM

Hoping to add a "human" touch to future services, Google has acquired speech synthesis technology provider Phonetic Arts. Translation: "The grand plan for Google is to enhance the robo-voices when a computer speaks to you," ZDNet explains. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Google Translate talks to you and rest assured Android devices will be yapping more often too." In a blog post, Google said Phonetic Arts researchers and engineers are hoping to deliver natural computer speech from small samples of recorded voice. According to ZDNet, Phonetic Arts has a series of products ranging from PA Studio, for voice creation, Composer, which combines recordings for new sentences, Generator, which takes text and turns it to voice and a game engine that mixes and matches parts.

Read the whole story at ZDNet »