While listening to a story on NPR’s Weekend Edition about a computerized art installation, I began to wonder… the project uses computer-generated voices speaking snippets of messages passing through the Internet. The voice has a slight British accent, which makes me wonder – do computers sold in different regions have accents?
My Mac has a range of voices, all American. I found some Mexican voices on the Apple website and installed them, using them is amusing as it pronounces Spanish just fine, but has a lot of trouble with regular English words.
Do Macs in England come with different, British-accented voices? What about Macs in Japan? Do Canadian Macs pronounce their “O”s differently?
If you’re a Mac user from another country, let me know. And package up those voices and send them to me.
Oh, another idea: Apple could do some sampling and sell new voices (they haven’t had any new voices in, oh, at least 6 or 7 years). For instance: do some extensive sampling of Majel Barrett and produce a plug-in that gives your Mac the Star Trek computer voice. Or a Bush plug-in that gives your Mac a twang and garbles the words.
