Paul was Dec talk speech synthesis, the kind of speech used by most blind
people to access their computer.

Kelly

Chicago Sun-Times

Weather network getting new voice

July 5, 2002

BY ART GOLAB
STAFF REPORTER

"Paul"--the disembodied, synthesized voice of the nationwide radio
network of the National Weather Service--is on his way out, the victim of
a voice deemed too grating to be breaking the news of impending weather
troubles.

He's being replaced by the team of "Craig" and "Donna," who, while still
computerized, have more, well, human-sounding voices.

The new voices have drawn raves in test markets around the country, the
nation's official forecast agency says, and are about to hit the airwaves
here on broadcasts available on weather radios long used by boaters and
increasingly embraced by other weather fans.

Actual human beings used to deliver the weather service's official
statements, until the voice of Paul arrived in 1997.

Listeners complained about Paul from the start. He was hard to
understand, especially when it was noisy. And he spoke with a heavy
accent--think Fargo, N.D.--that sounded as if it were run through an
electronic voice box to distort the sound even more.

Still, he offered an advantage over live announcers: He could get on the
air with a weather warning just as fast as the words could be typed into
a computer. Until Paul, a human had to identify a warning message, record
it and then put it out over the air.

"It allowed us to get warnings out in seconds, rather than minutes,"
Susan Weaver, a National Weather Service spokeswoman, said of the
innovation. "And when you're talking about severe weather, seconds save
lives."

But given the complaints and the quickly improving technology, the
weather service began auditioning new voices. It struck paydirt with the
Craig and Donna voices, from Speechworks International, a Boston firm. In
a tryout, those voices proved the most popular with 19,000 listeners
surveyed over the Internet.

You can listen to the new weather voices--and the old--online at
www.nws.noaa.gov.


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