Lend your ears to science!->
Submitted
by
MikeRozak
MikeRozak writes "The Blizzard Challenge is an annual online listening test run by text-to-speech (synthesized speech) researchers to help improve their technology. Around 17 research organizations were provided with 10 hours of audio recordings of single speaker. They were locked in their labs for two months, and told to produce the best synthesized voice they could from the recordings.
Two months later, the doors have been unbolted, and the researchers need your help!
Please take the time to go through the listening test at http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/blizzard/blizzard2009/english/register-ER.html. You will be played examples of synthesized speech from the different research organizations, and asked to rate how good (or bad) they sound. The technology has come a long way since Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice; some of the synthesized examples are very good.
Your ratings help the researchers identify which techniques produce the most realistic voices, so that next year's text-to-speech will sound better. Improved text-to-speech helps the blind, people who lost their voice (like Stephen Hawking), those hated computerized telephone operators, and PC games! Text-to-speech can even be humorous, see http://www.idyacy.com/cgi-bin/bushomatic.cgi for a talking George Bush."
Link to Original Source
Two months later, the doors have been unbolted, and the researchers need your help!
Please take the time to go through the listening test at http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/blizzard/blizzard2009/english/register-ER.html. You will be played examples of synthesized speech from the different research organizations, and asked to rate how good (or bad) they sound. The technology has come a long way since Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice; some of the synthesized examples are very good.
Your ratings help the researchers identify which techniques produce the most realistic voices, so that next year's text-to-speech will sound better. Improved text-to-speech helps the blind, people who lost their voice (like Stephen Hawking), those hated computerized telephone operators, and PC games! Text-to-speech can even be humorous, see http://www.idyacy.com/cgi-bin/bushomatic.cgi for a talking George Bush."
Link to Original Source