So you could do this by tweaking an open source synthesized voice I guess. This would be a synthesized voice with volume pitch and wah pedals added in so you could control the tone of voice to create an emotional impact. Some people who use augmentative communication can communicate in real time, but the tone of voice is always really computery, so just add in these tone controls and it would be so cool that every teenager would not be able to resist buying one and then the freaking augmentative communication companies would make alot of money and there would be new augmentative communication companies to provide competition and the freaking augmentative communication companies would have to stop charging $7000 dollars for machines that sound like shit.
-- JesusHChrist, Mar 23 2008

bebot http://www.youtube....jkY&feature=related
so will someone please combine this with a screen reader? there is a lot of money and mating-related energy out there just waiting to be directed at an emotionally expressive assistive technology [JesusHChrist, Dec 25 2010, last modified Dec 26 2010]

Many TTS engines let you embed little melody clues in text-to-speech input to lift a voice, stress a syllable, etc. But this would be cooler.
-- jutta, Mar 23 2008


'Boy, Steve, it must suck to live in a chair and speak by computer all the time...'. 'Yea, but listen to this new version of 'Voodoo Child' I just recorded...'. Somehow, I just don't think it's gonna make it...
-- drummac88, Mar 23 2008


I see [JesusHChrist] has returned.
-- phoenix, Mar 23 2008


I like the idea of making aids for the disabled cool, and thereby forcing down the price. An idea within an idea.
-- bungston, Mar 23 2008


<Stephen Hawking Voice>And now.....the end is near, and so I face...the final curtain...</shv>
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 23 2008


This would slow down the operator, but probably speed up the communication process overall.

Easter bun to the risen [JesusHChrist].
-- wagster, Mar 23 2008


Bun for anything making companies charge less for shitty products/services.
-- Pericles, Mar 23 2008


Peter Framptom sales would go up too!

Hey, but seriously, would this maybe be too creepy? I mean creepy like how they have trouble with making robots look too real because the reduced differences between man and machine end up somehow psychologically displeasing as in making people wonder whether or not they themselves, or the people around them, are robots or not, and generally inducing fear in an apocalyptic fall of society as we know it, a drastic global shift into a type 1 Civilization and generally creating events which are later recognized as the second coming of Christ?

Happy Easter!
-- daseva, Mar 23 2008


[Wags] - can you check [Daseva9]'s Descartes subroutines? She's beginning to suspect.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 23 2008



random, halfbakery