I’d
like to take a moment to introduce everyone here to a woman named Susan
Bennett. She’s a person that most people around this country and around the
world have never heard of. But her voice is one of the most recognized voices
in the world. That is because as we just learned today, she is the original
voice of Siri.
A lot of us might
remember October 5th, 2011, as the day that the legendary Steve Jobs
passed away. It completely overshadowed the announcement of the iPhone 4S,
which had occurred the previous day. It is no secret that Jobs was heavily
involved with 4S’s development, including the integration of Siri, that legendary
voice assistant that resides on your iPhone and the most recent iPads that
allows you to launch your device’s apps, schedule appointments, make phone
calls, and look up information on the Internet. Also let’s not forget about those
numerous jokes and funny responses, such as Siri’s answers to the question “What
is the meaning of life?” Since it was first introduced, Siri has expanded
dramatically, and with iOS7, it now offers a male voice as well as voices in
foreign accents. However, since Siri was first introduced, many have wondered
who the original voice behind it was. Today, we finally have our answer.
This
morning, Susan Bennett appeared on CNN’s “New Day” and announced to the world, “I’m
the original voice of Siri.” This interesting story begins in July 2005, when
Bennett, a voice actress, signed a contract with the software company ScanSoft
offering her voice for recordings that would be used in a database to construct
speech. For four hours a day, every day in July, she holed up in a recording
booth and read all kinds of nonsensical phrases and sentences so that the folks
at ScanSoft could work their magic – pulling out vowels, consonants, syllables,
and playing with her pitch and speed. These snippets were then synthesized in a
concatenation process that built words, sentences, and paragraphs. Bennett says
she never knew exactly how her voice would be used; she assumed it would be
employed in company phone systems, but did not think much about it beyond that.
In
October 2011, shortly after the iPhone 4S was released, Bennett received a
phone call from one of her colleagues who was playing around with the new phone
and had heard Siri; the colleague thought the voice sounded eerily similar to
Bennett’s and wanted to know if Bennett knew anything about this. Bennett went
to Apple’s website on her computer and pulled up some video clips announcing
Siri; she knew immediately that the voice was hers. It just so happens that a
few months after Bennett made her original recordings, ScanSoft merged with and
took on the name of Nuance Communications; the company widely believed to have
provided Apple with the Siri technology. Apple has never confirmed the
involvement of Bennett or Nuance with Siri, and both Apple and Nuance refused
to comment on Bennett for CNN’s story. Faced with these refusals, CNN took it
upon itself to investigate by hiring an audio forensics expert with 30 years of
experience to study Bennett’s voice and the voice of Siri. After finishing his
analysis, the expert concluded that the two voices were “identical – a 100%
match.” I would encourage everyone to go to the CNN article, for which I am
putting a link at the end of this post, and see just how the expert was able to
come to his conclusion. In case you were wondering how CNN first got the story,
it came up casually in an interview Bennett gave to CNN’s Jessica Ravitz (who
also happens to be the author of this morning’s Siri article) regarding her
role as a one of the voices of Delta’s terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International
Airport, the world’s busiest.
The
reason I decided to make this story the subject of my blog post for this week is
that I think this is a very interesting story that I believe deserves more
attention than it is currently getting. The voice of Siri is one of the most
recognized in the world, and the Siri technology was a game-changer in the
industry. Although Bennett has never been subject to any kind of nondisclosure
or secrecy agreement regarding her Siri voice-work, it is regrettable that
Apple has not wished to disclose this interesting bit of information. I do not
see how Apple’s interests would have been harmed if they had disclosed to the
world that Susan Bennett was the voice of Siri. While knowing this might not
change anyone’s opinion of the Siri technology, I think it’s something worth
sharing.
CNN Article from which I got information for this blog post: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/tech/mobile/bennett-siri-iphone-voice/index.html
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