Technology is just a wonderful thing when it is used for good. Respected film critic Roger Ebert will be able to once again speak with his own voice even though he lost the ability to speak after surgery for Cancer.
Ebert recorded commentaries for DVD movies before he lost his voice. A Scottish company called CereProc (SAYR’-uh-prok) blended digital recordings of Ebert speaking to make his text-to-audio voice.
Ebert writes that the voice will be heard predicting Oscar winners on a segment of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” airing Tuesday.
He says he may be able to use the voice for radio and Webcasts.
It is amazing that they can do this, so each time he uses his digitized voice to speech tool it won’t be a constant reminder that we will never again hear his voice.
To me that is just awesome.
Tough to see him so devastated.
He’s a legend but at this point its hard to see him exploited this way. Oprah loves the media attention of disabled people, especially stars.
She’s a shamless whore. (Imo)
I think its great that Roger is getting a voice again. He use to be so vocal and so it was disappointing when he lost his voice. So this is really good news for all of us.
I read the piece in Esquire where it mentions that having tried various different artificial voices including a British one he was waiting for them to develop the one based on his own voice. Hopefully he will be happy with it and not feel it slightly weird, because it would be good to hear his voice again.
I don’t always agree with him on reviews but I love how he writes and even if you don’t agree, his reviews are substantial enough to understand and accept why he didn’t like something that you may like. That’s why I’ve always admired Ebert. He never was a fan of David Lynch films and I can’t think of any besides Mulholland Dr. (if that was the one he gave a good reviews to) that he liked, but I always accepted his opinion because he had structure behind his reason. Unlike that troll who somehow still had a job for the new york press; armond white, the guy is aggravating and possibly the worst critic on the planet next to rene rodriguez of the miami herald.
He brings race into every review. He’s such a troll I agree.
I remember a while ago, Armond White was the first person to give District 9 a negative review and he dropped the 100% on rotten tomatoes for that movie. Everyone called him a troll and Ebert stepped up to the plate and gave him some support and told people to back off. Then he gave something horrible a great review 2 days later and Ebert retracted his statement and called him a troll as well. Hilarious!!
GI Joe Rise of the Cobra was what Armond White gave a great review to, after he bashed District 9.
Armond White has made a name for himself in the industry for standing out as the opposite of whatever is popular. If a film is getting universally positive reviews he will be the first one to say it is terrible just to stand out.
If he didnt do that, he would be a complete unknown. Why he wants to be known for his lack of integrity is beyond me.
Exactly Rodney, he’s a troll. He manages to be paid good money to be a troll too. He’s such an unbelievable douche.
This news has made my day. I’ve admired him since I was 9 watching “At the Movies”
Good for him…missed hearing his voice.
Great.
I am not the largest fan of the man in the world, I rarely agree with his opinions.
That being said, he has always been fair and eloquent in the expression of his opinions and I look forward to hearing them again.
This is definitely an amazing story.
They briefly covered the voice company in the beautifully written article in Esquire about Ebert (a very touching article).
I am so glad that we will hear Ebert’s voice once again.
That’s amazing and good for him. He’s one of my all time fav movie critics and loosing his voice from the movie world has been a real shame.
Hopefully this technology takes off and can restore the voices of allot of people all around the world.
I would like him to still review on blogs and stuff like that…
this is cool news!
thank god