But VocaliD, a Belmont, Massachusetts, company, is taking a different approach by creating custom voices using just a small sample from the recipient, even if they can't speak. Multiple companies and research groups are using speech synthesis engines to create voices from spoken samples, usually thousands of recorded sentences. The company delivered its first seven voices late last year and is working on about seven dozen more, which will cost $1,249 each. The other one, we all have this stuffiness to our speech," said Levine, 45, the manager of Sullivan County, New Hampshire. "It never occurred to me that I could use their voices, adapt it to me, and then be able to use that."

Source: New Zealand Herald July 16, 2016 22:30 UTC