@article{1562179,
      recid = {1562179},
      author = {Bell, Sarah A.,},
      title = {Vox ex Machina : a cultural history of talking machines /},
      pages = {1 online resource (256 pages).},
      abstract = {How today's digital devices got their voices, and how we  learned to listen to them. From early robots to toys like  the iconic Speak & Spell to Apple's Siri, Vox Ex Machina  tells the fascinating story of how scientists and engineers  developed voices for machines during the twentieth century.  Sarah Bell chronicles the development of voice synthesis  from buzzy electrical current and circuitry in analog  components to the robotic sounds of early digital signal  processing to today's human sounding applications. Along  the way, Bell also shows how the public responded to these  technologies and asks whether talking machines are even  good for us. Using a wide range of intriguing examples, Vox  Ex Machina is embedded in a wider story about people --  describing responses to voice synthesis technologies that  often challenged prevailing ideas about computation and  automation promoted by boosters of the Information Age.  Bell helps explain why voice technologies came to sound and  to operate in the way they do -- influenced as they were by  a combination of technical assumptions and limitations, the  choices of the corporations that deploy them, and the  habits that consumers developed over time. A beautifully  written book that will appeal to anyone with a healthy  skepticism toward Silicon Valley, Vox Ex Machina is an  important and timely contribution to our cultural histories  of information, computing, and media.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1562179},
}