Roger Ebert Premieres His New MacBook Voice

Roger Ebert Premieres His New MacBook Voice

This is absolutely great. Film critic Roger Ebert is premiering his new computer voice on Oprah this afternoon. Below is a sneak peek. His new voice — spoken by his MacBook — actually sounds like him. He looks really delighted with it.

“In first grade they said I talked too much, and now I still can,” he says, grinning.

Ebert lost his voice box after years of cancer treatments. He used to speak with “Alex,” the robotic voice built into OS X.  His new voice was created by CereProc, a company in Scotland that recreated it from hours of Ebert’s TV shows and DVD commentaries.

DON'T MISS
Roger Ebert’s MacBook Soon To Speak With Ebert’s Own Voice

Via Videogum and Daring Fireball.

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

(sorry, you need Javascript to see this e-mail address)| Read more posts by .

Posted in Mac Pro, Media, News, Software, Top stories |

  • Ace

    It’s fantastic!

  • Greg

    Now we need to fund an AI project to replicate his mind. The only film critic I trust.

  • http://www.grinningidiot.com JAYnLA

    This is one of those clips that makes be very happy and very sad simultaneously.

  • http://www.nintendoland.net Derek

    That’s not Oprah… that’s his wife, Chaz.