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Stephen Hawking’s computer-generated voice is so iconic that it’s trademarked — The filmmakers behind The Theory of Everything had to get Hawking’s personal permission to use the voice in his biopic.

But that voice has an interesting origin story of its own.

Back in the ’80s, when Hawking was first exploring text-to-speech communication options after he lost the power of speech, a pioneer in computer-generated speech algorithms was working at MIT on that very thing. His name was Dennis Klatt.

As Wired uncovered, Klatt’s work was incorporated into one of the first devices that translated speech into text: the DECtalk. The company that made the speech synthesizer for Hawking’s very first computer used the voice Klatt had recorded for computer synthesis. The voice was called ‘Perfect Paul,’ and it was based on recordings of Klatt himself. Read more…

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In the aftermath of Stephen Hawking’s death, the website for the Motor-Neurone Disease (MND) Association has crashed due to an overwhelming influx of donations.

Hawking was diagnosed with MND—a fatal degenerative condition that affects the brain and nerves—in 1963 and was given two years to live by doctors. He battled the condition, which is also known as ALS, for a further 55 years until his death early Wednesday morning.

We’ve had an influx of donations this morning following the death of Professor Stephen Hawking. Our website is currently down. We’re working to get it live as soon as possible.

Thank you all for your support. If you’re trying to donate, you can visit https://t.co/qn203FsnFh #MND

— MND Association (@mndassoc) March 14, 2018 Read more…

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