We go back in the NPR archives to find a 30-year-old progress report on the development of computer speech from NPR correspondent Ira Flatow. Things have come along quite a bit since then. Well, ...

The brain surgeon began as he always does, making an incision in the scalp and gently spreading it apart to expose the skull. He then drilled a 3-inch circular opening through the bone, down to the ...

Think about how you read. Do you say every word out loud to yourself in your head? That’s a process called internal vocalization or subvocalization, and when you say words to yourself in your head, ...

People read personality into a synthetic voice even when they know that it’s made by a computer. What’s more, if the “voice” mirrors their personalities, people will like and be more readily ...

Scientists have developed a device that can translate thoughts about speech into spoken words in real time. Although it’s still experimental, they hope the brain-computer interface could someday help ...

We get it. We also watched Star Trek and thought how cool it would be to talk to our computer. From Kirk setting a self-destruct sequence, to Scotty talking into a mouse, or Picard ordering Earl Grey, ...

What is Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR)? Automatic Speech Recognition, or ASR, is a technology that converts spoken language into written text. Think of it like having a super smart digital ...