Ridley said in his blog that he usually relied on a Lightwriter for his text-to-speech needs, but found that the iPad was easier to use – he could just copy-paste his material instead of typing them live – and the synthesized voice sounded clear enough. Watch the video below to see Ridley perform. I recommend you turn captions on and drive the young ones away. Sorry kids, this is for adults only. We get to hear dirty stuff and you get to not pay for things. That’s how the world works.

This isn’t really about how awesome the iPad is but how awesome technology is in general. I’m sure Ridley could have used other tablets or smartphones for his act. The fact that we have devices which are widely available and so powerful is something that we should all be thankful for. Although I do wish I could install SBSettings without jailbreaking – Thanks technology!

[via Lee Ridley via The Verge]

The project is being worked on by Denise Herzing of the Wild Dolphin Project and Thad Starner, and AI researcher from the Georgia Institute of Technology. The idea is that the device would allow the researchers to capture and reproduce sounds that they can perhaps turn into a useful language to allow communication with dolphins and to allow the dolphin to request things from the people too. The language will be simple words for things like ride the bow wave of the divers boat and more.

I didn’t realize how smart dolphins were; apparently, they can understand and respond to about 100 words. The device will be connected to the diver’s chest and will have two hydrophones to pick up sounds and show the diver what direction to go using LEDs on the goggles.

[via NewScientist]

This little guy may look all cute and cuddly, but he’ll still bug you to the point that you’ll want to throw him across the room after about 10 seconds. That’s because the little bugger listens to exactly what you say, and then insists on parroting it back – not in your own voice, of course, but in hamster-speak. Watch and listen…

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Oh my god. Kill it now. I can only imagine what might happen if there were a whole roomful of these. Please do not buy me one of these unless you want to see me smash a Mimicry Pet hamster on camera – or maybe I’d send it to the “will it blend?” guys. If you absolutely must drive everyone in the house crazy with one of these, you can grab a Mimicry Pet hamster over at Strapya World for about $35 (USD).

The “Speaking Piano” has been programmed to recite The Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court World Venice Forum 2009, for all to hear. Artist/composer Peter Ablinger transcoded the voice of an elementary student into data that could then be interpreted by a computer and mapped to servos that play the piano keys. Why? Something to do with an artistic and political statement.

And while the humans in the video clip below are speaking in German, the piano speaks its truth in plain English. Turn up your volume, watch, and enjoy…

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Weird, wild stuff indeed. Alles klar, herr kommissar?

[via adafruit industries, hack-a-day and matrixsynth]

Electronic musician Denkitribe (with the help of DS-10 master Keishi Yonao) managed to figure out a way to adjust the analog sound waveforms to sound like the words in Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. While the formant synthesis waveforms don’t sound exactly like the original words, the vocoder-like effect is pretty cool, and definitely not something that I thought you could do with the DS-10 cart.

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If you don’t already have the KORG DS-10 synthesizer for your Nintendo DS, you owe it to yourself to grab a copy. It’s available over on Amazon for $19.99 (USD).

[Reader Tip: Be sure to check out the HD version of the YouTube clip to see the exact settings if you want to try this for yourself.]

Created by AssistiveWare, Proloquo2Go provides users who have difficulties speaking with a mobile text-to-speech system (known as an augmentative and alternative communication, or AAC solution) which allows individuals to quickly verbalize thoughts by pressing on icons on the iPhone’s touchscreen. The system is loaded with a vocabulary of over 7000 words and phrases, and provides an easy-to-use visual interface for finding words.

Proloquo2go features a human-sounding text-to-speech (TTS) engine which provides North American male, female, boy and girl voices. You can also download an update which allows these voices to be swapped out for British ones. There’s also a simple TTS typing interface if you want (and are able) to type words. You can even retrieve recently used phrases at any time and play them back without having to recreate them over and over again. This is a really thoughtful touch.

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While many of you might think $189.99 (USD) is a lot to pay for an app, I can only imagine what a bargain that might seem like if I had difficulty speaking. Especially knowing that traditional AAC devices cost thousands of dollars and are a huge pain to lug around. It’s nice to know that our fun and disposable gadgets can occasionally serve a meaningful purpose. Kudos to AssistiveWare for making a difference.

You can find Proloquo2Go on the iTunes App Store.

Aibelive’s AITALK controller snaps onto the bottom of iPods, and provides complete voice control, letting you search for song, artist or album with the dulcet tones of your voicebox.

Aibelive claims their technology is 90% accurate (does this it’ll play the wrong song 10% of the time?) Their voice recognition system is speaker-independent, and can understand 17 different languages. The photo below shows all of the available commands you can kick off with the press of AITALK’s voice control button.

I’m not quite sure what’s up with that “reference song list,” but I can say with confidence that I have 0.0% of these tracks on my iPod.

There’s no word on a release date yet, but word on the street is that the AITALK will retail come first to North America, and retail for appx. $85 (USD).

[AITALK via AVING and Engadget China]

The RoboThespian is a life-sized robotic puppet, designed with one mission in mind — to entertain. Created by UK interactive exhibit builder Engineered Arts, the robot can do spoken parts, singing, story telling, and even some dance maneuvers. Now sit back and enjoy as RoboSapien performs some classic movie moments.

Here he is doing his DeNiro:

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And no robot act would be complete without some Aaahnold:

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How about a little salty old Robert Shaw from Jaws:

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RoboThespian does his best C3P0:

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I like to think this is a scene from A Clockwork Orange:

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While RoboThespian won’t be winning an Oscar anytime soon, he’s might be good enough to pull off a People’s Choice or a Golden Globe.

If you happen to live in the UK, you should be able to check out some of these guys performing at The Eden Project in Cornwall. Otherwise, Engineered Arts rents and sells these robots for use in special events, museums and entertainment facilities, so you might run into one the next time you head out to get some some culture.

RDI was the manufacturer behind such LaserDisc arcade classics as Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, and the Halcyon was their attempt to bring the same type of gaming experience to your living room. In addition to its FMV game play, the Halcyon had speech synthesis and early voice recognition capabilities. It also was one of the first systems which let you save your gaming progress.

The one that’s up for sale on eBay comes with everything but the original microphone that came with the system, and even includes the only discs ever released for the console: Thayer’s Quest and NFL Raiders vs. Chargers. This is an extremely rare find, so I’d expect the price to shoot through the roof. Here’s the kind of exciting gaming action you’ll be missing out on if you don’t win the auction:

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[Video from the arcade version of Thayer's Quest, but you get the point].

With only two games ever released and originally priced at a whopping $2500 (in 1985 dollars), it’s no wonder the system never really caught on.

[eBay via GameSniped]

The Mega Mech Airmagination Inflatable Robot has to be one of the worst product names I’ve heard in a long time. Even though this inflatable R/C robot is designed as a kid’s toy, it’s sure to be blast sneaking around the hallways and cubicle farms at your office. The inflata-bot stands over 4-feet tall and it can speak — in a typically robotic tone — although I’m not exactly sure what it has to say.

It’s only appropriate that the Mega Mech is available from everyone’s favorite Mega Store, Wal-Mart. It’s just $39.95.

[via 7Gadgets]

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I’ve always thought that voice-driven song selection would be perfect for those times when you just can’t dig into your pocket or backpack to grab your iPod. Hopefully if Apple and AT&T ever opens up the iPhone for developers, VoiceSignal can commercialize this desirable feature.

[via MobileWhack]

Chinavasion’s latest media player not only handles your music and videos with aplomb, it can also emulate a variety of classic gaming consoles. There’s emulation support for the NES, Gameboy, Gameboy Color and Sega Genesis so you can play your favorites from the past. In addition, the device also integrates an E-book capability that actually uses text-to-speech to read books to you in either Chinese or English.

The player has a 3-inch TFT widescreen, and comes with a snap-on gaming pad accessory so you can get your game on. The device has 2GB of on-board memory and can be expanded up to 6GB total, with the addition of a 4GB SD card. Chinavasion hasn’t announced a price yet, but based on their past bargain-basement releases, it’s almost a sure bet that it’ll be inexpensive.

Mr. Hopkinson’s Computer sings covers of everything from Radiohead to Portishead to The Stone Roses in his computerized drone.

In the video clip below, he even does a little sassy monologue and sings The Pixies classic Gigantic along with a live band.

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Be sure to check out Mr. Hopkinson’s Computer Myspace page for more tunes. There are few more tracks here. (He’s also got a “girlfriend,” the Audrey 3000).

[Thanks for the tip, Heather!] 

Be sure to have your speakers turned on for this video clip or you’ll miss how it works.

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The Robot Audition Project is a collaborative effort by Kyoto University and Honda Research Institute Japan. The team has been working on developing these complex voice processing capabilities for several years now, but it’s only recently that they’ve got the system working so well. The application can not only recognize voices in real time, it can determine where they’re coming from using both auditory and visual cues, including face recognition technology.

The engineers who’ve designed the system have honed it enough now that they’ve even got it running on several different robotic platforms, including the Robovie R2 (seen in the video) and the well-known Honda Asimo.

Perhaps once they get these robots working in the real world, they’ll finally get my order right at the Burger King.

The software will enable developers to add voice command capabilities to games with little impact on CPU or memory usage. In addition, their a special Karaoke edition of the software will enable the Wii to report timing, pitch and accuracy of vocals, opening the gates to a wave of new singing games for the little console that could.

Fonix has previously provided voice recognition capabilities for other consoles such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and Playstation 3, so it’s good to see the Wii get the same.

[Press Release]

In addition to all of the well known features of the controller, the Wii-mote appears to have a special chip on board which is designed for voice processing applications. According to Fortune, the so-called “Audio Translator” chip is designed to convert analog speech patterns into a digital data stream (among other things.) However, from what I can tell, it’s this chip from ROHM Electronics, which sounds more like it’s designed for voice and music output capabilities than for input. As a matter of fact, the chip is designed for use in voice guidance applications such as the speech your hear from GPS navigators.

If it is somehow usable for voice input, it’s not clear whether the internal speaker on the Wii-mote could be used as a microphone, or if the chip would require an additional input source. While it doesn’t appear that the chip is currently used by any games, I’m guessing we’ll see it used in the future.

[via GoNintendo]

The new portable translator not only translates over 450,000 words and 12,000 phrases, it contains recorded samples of speech to provide accurate pronunciation in all 12 languages. The TGA-490 speaks in Mandarin Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The compact package also features an MP3 player, currency converter, world alarm clock and voice recorder.

The Franklin TGA-490 Universal Speaking Translator will be available starting this February for $229.95 USD.