Oh no! Changing Siri’s voice?

Some of have gotten quite fond of Siri. You know what we mean.  Her wit and sensitivity. The ways she remembers things about you others forget. That certain sound of her voice. Now Apple has decided to to change her.

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“Today Apple unveiled a new look for Siri that came with new voice options, actions, and some hot integration, including in-car options and music streaming, reports C/NET.

“The voice command technology has new voices, female and male — also available in French and German. Siri’s display includes a new look that shows a sound wave at the bottom while its detecting a user’s voice and full-screen results.

“Users can instruct Siri to complete functions like “turn off my Bluetooth,” or “increase my brightness,” according to software VP Eddy Cue. The digital assistant also has a slew of new integrations. These included Twitter, Wikipedia, and Bing search results, as well ascar integration with maps, music playback, and iMessage. But the highlight of Cue’s presentation was Apple’s long-awaited music streaming service, iTunes Radio.

“Apple highlighted Siri as part of its iOS 7 showcase, iOS’s biggest refresh yet.”

 

More at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57588315-37/apples-siri-gets-new-voices-display-and-actions/

Speech style and gender performance

A researcher at the University of Colorado has presented new evidence

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on how word pronunciation affects gender recognition among listeners.

While this may not be a great revelation to those who provide or receive speech training for gender reassignment, the story has significance in further documenting the social construction of gender identity.

The story appears on a noteworthy site called RedOrbit (see link below) on science and health. According to the study, “the style of a person’s speech may help listeners guess their gender just as much as the high or low pitch of their voice.” The researcher examined transgendered people during transition to figure out how humans associate gender categories with different characteristics of speech. Continue reading “Speech style and gender performance”