Star Trek's LCARS Could Become Your Virtual Assistant (cnet.com) 145
H_Fisher writes: It has arguably inspired many other technological innovations in the fifty years since its premiere, and now another Star Trek-inspired touch could be coming to your device: the voice of Majel Barrett from the Star Trek universe's LCARS computer system. CNET reports: "The voice of LCARS was provided by Majel Barrett, who was married to Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Although Barrett sadly passed away in 2008, she took several roles on the show over the years, including nurse Christine Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series and Betazoid ambassador Lwaxana Troi on Star Trek: The Next Generation. According to a tweet by the official Roddenberry account yesterday, this has provided enough phonetic data to perhaps get Barrett's voice appearing in upcoming new 2017 TV series Star Trek: Discovery -- and maybe even a Siri-like virtual assistant."
Aaaand a million nerds just came in their pants (Score:5, Funny)
I've always been able to spot other trekkers by how people react to me referring to any digital female voice as Majel.
Gene's favorite actress (Score:2)
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That's because they were married. Majel Barrett Roddenberry.
She could act too but most of her roles were done by her husband, and cameos after he died. That's why loxwana too gets more character development latter TNG and ds9
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Very true. Looking at the garbage that has passed for science fiction since 2001 (the year, not the movie) people could do much worse than looking at these old pilots of Gene's and running with them.
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Feels a bit ... too much (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just old and boring, but I really don't like the way that being dead is no longer the end for appearing in new things you never knew about. Between the holographic appearances of ... was it Tupac? And now this, it all just feels a bit too morbid to me.
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Don't destroy a man's dreams.
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At a minimum one testicle is.
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Actually I think it is a sign of the times. Nothing new has been done since the 60's generation wrote the aspirational playbook. So why shouldn't they become immortal? They grew up in a world made grey by a world war and they wanted something better. Sadly the following generations mostly just want to breed and watch action adventure movies made by the man. The occasional spark of inspiration like Firefly is soon replaced by tedious soaps with soft porn and violence like Game of Thrones.
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just want to breed
No they don't. If they were Europe wouldn't be importing muslims and the US wouldn't be importing Mexicans. White european birthrates are catastrophically low and will likely never recover.
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and will likely never recover.
Based on what? What particular crystal ball is being used for this? Never is a long-ass time.
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Eh, I kind of wanted the future to be like Star Trek. Do Mexicans and Muslims make spaceships? I don't think they do.
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Technically, Musk is an African-American, but generally not what people mean by that term.
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Firefly a spark of inspiration? You mean that shit american Blake's 7 ripoff, just with space zombies added?
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"Space zombies"? Isn't a prerequisite for something being a zombie being dead at some point?
A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a fictional undead being created through the reanimation of a human corpse.
Reavers aren't reanimated; they're just regular humans who went crazy.
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Oh right, *SPOILER*. If you haven't seen it after 13 years you probably weren't going to before this post went up :)
Fair enough, but I was waiting for you to make an actual point with that instead of just dropping the detailed spoiler and otherwise contributing nothing to the conversation.
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That new triangle Star Desrtoyer main body of the upcoming 2017 Enterprise is a hideous betrayal.
That is an actual fact.
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A lot of story structure is far more ancient than that. When you are talking about most of the highly formulaic nonsense out there, the original comment is kind of spot on. Instead of being bored with yet another iteration of the same concept, you can just grab an earlier version of it that's probably better done.
That's not even getting into the blatant remakes.
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It's fucking ridiculous. Nirvana is back on tour. Robin Williams is live at Winstar Casino this weekend. Gene Wilder is starring in the gay porno "Charlie the Fudgepacker"
Eternity is a long time to go without a paycheck, so if I were you, I'd start planning your post-death retirement too. Your 401k isn't going to last forever.
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Can't forget Audrey Hepburn appearing in a candy commercial [youtube.com], decades after her death.
And remember when those Matrix-movies-that-shall-not-be-named had hundreds of Agent Smiths? The technology they used to scan Hugo Weaving and replicate him digitally was already being billed at that time as a way to bring dead actors back, or else bring back younger versions of actors who've aged significantly...which is exactly what we saw in one of the newer Terminator movies (whatever the Christian Bale one was called),
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That wasn't a hologram. It was a special effect called Pepper's Ghost [wikipedia.org].
Worse, the effect that was used for Tupac wasn't even three dimensional... if you were looking at it from an oblique angle, you'd see the image much as you would see a picture from a similar angle.. The smaller angular diameter you perceive of the surface would result in the visual features you could see from more directly in front being condensed into a tighter space, while with
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Yeah, academic research is also creepy. Dead people's ideas being used to support new ideas is kinda necromantic.
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And we will eventually duplicate what's special about a brain.
No we won't. We'll never, ever do that. God damn Singularity Nutters.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I found one mistake!
Is using a dead womans voice... (Score:5, Interesting)
... a fitting tribute to the actress or just that little bit creepy? I can't decide.
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Just wait till they realistically "reanimate" the original crew.
Re:Is using a dead womans voice... (Score:5, Informative)
They could do that today. They did it with Hitler for a documentary by digitally putting his face into an actor.
I kinda wish they would actually. Bring back Firefly, finish Angel, do some more Next Generation stories with the characters from that era.
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You must've missed Firefly the movie. There was pretty much nothing left to be discovered after that.
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Except for all those comic books they've been doing since then...
Re:Is using a dead womans voice... (Score:4, Interesting)
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re: money in Star Trek (Score:2)
Actually, I don't think it was so inconsistent .... Just not as well explained to viewers as it could have been.
Those enlisted in Starfleet or living on planets under their control didn't have to work for money anymore.... For those who lived on planets outside their zone of influence, results varied. Many of those planets still exchanged currency for goods and/or services. Technology like replicators don't appear to have been universally available or prevalent.
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Nah, it was still inconsistent. Harry Mudd clearly lived within Federation space, even if he considered himself an outlaw, and he was obsessed with money.
And what about the Ferenghi living on Deep Space 9? Didn't they live on a "planet" under Starfleet's control? I guess technically they weren't really obsessed with money, they were obsessed with acquiring material things. But that in itself is a paradox when acquiring material things incurs no monetary cost.
I mean, if you think about it, the idea of the en
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The Ferengi explicitly rejected the very concept of material egalitarianism (which underlies the Federation using their replicated plenty to eliminate scarcity), and for entirely social reasons (status) strove to acquire something that specifically could not be replicated (Latinum). They basically worship capitalism (literally) and actively fight against the natural progress of technology eliminating it.
Mudd likely wanted money for similar reasons. Some people -- lots of people -- don't just want all of the
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Mudd sometimes lived in Federation Space. He went out of it twice, the first to pick up whores for miners to marry, and the second to live on a planet of robots.
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Because Latanum appeared, at least in one episode, to be a dangerous liquid metal like mercury. Which might also be the reason it could not be replicated. The gold was used as shielding to make usable money.
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Whenever I watch Next Generation now, I realize how much it is a product of a bygone era, e.g. its extremely optimistic technological future (who would really work without money?).
Anyone who wanted to have stuff that you couldn't have as an ordinary civilian. Not just anyone in the Trek universe got ferried around to pleasure planets, or even got to travel on starships to anywhere except colony worlds, even by the time of TNG. The only known privately owned starship in the Federation by the time of TOS was captained by a criminal and I don't recall any other personal vessels anywhere in the Federation in any show... but perhaps someone will show me up with their superior knowledge? h
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I think TNG is kind of timeless in that respect. Okay, some of the tech has dated badly, like why don't the com badges have cameras to save them describing everything over a voice channel (other than to save money and build suspense, obviously), but the ideas stand up. You mention the lack of money specifically, at a time when some places are experimenting with a universal basic income.
Have you seen Star Trek Continues on YouTube? It's a continuation of the original series and actually better in many ways.
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Nah, it'd result in some pretty crappy rip-offs.
Have you seen the show Dark Matter? It tries really hard to be Firefly-esque - identical (if shallower) archetyped characters (bravado gunman, gifted girlchild, etc.) , all with a similar gist. At least in the first couple episodes, that's as far as I got due to the insufferable dialog and acting.
And without the characters - the acting, the motion, etc. - it'd not be the same. And which is harder, impersonating someone, or playing a unique character? I'm fairl
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They could do that today. They did it with Hitler for a documentary by digitally putting his face into an actor.
I kinda wish they would actually. Bring back Firefly, finish Angel
The ending is up to you! For example:
Angel Secret Ending: Charisma Carpenter and Amy Adams make love to each other for 17 hours, the end.
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Wait! I meant Amy Acker!
Wait, both Amys. The ending is up to me!
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As far as I recall, Angel had an ending. Was the ending just not good enough or something?
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Less creepy when you remember that there were actual plans to call a digital assistant "Majel". And that all computer voices we hear today could already be the voices of dead voice actors. And they are already disembodied voices.
I'd swing more to the "fitting tribute" side
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"And that all computer voices we hear today could already be the voices of dead voice actors. And they are already disembodied voices."
True, but recording something then dying is one thing, using the voice of someone who is already dead is another.
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Her voice was recorded before she died too!
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I could have phrased that better.
I mean that they have decided *after* her death to use recordings that were done for another series. She didn't record them for the new series then die.
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You shouldn't ever watch old movies. The actors in there are like ghosts of the past, you know...
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Have you ever met my grandparents? They had the habit of, when watching tv, going on about all those dead people, too...
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My grandma had the habit of reading the obituaries with her friends to look who they know. It was like a morbid game of "hah, outlived ya!"
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It's better they use a dead woman's voice than a dead woman's... ... no, I won't go there.
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Re:Foretold (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2086, copyright will be lifetime + 140 years (or 160 years for works for hire). Steamboat Willie can never enter the public domain after all...
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Steamboat Willie can never enter the public domain after all...
I've been referring to the 'Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act' as the "Mickey Mouse Perpetual Protection Act" for years, and I'll just shift the name to whatever bill Disney rams through Congress to extend copyright protection to ensure that no representation of The Mouse ever falls into the public domain.
Life of grandchildren (Score:2)
In its opinion in Eldred v. Ashcroft upholding the Bono Act, the Supreme Court recognized the possibility of "legislative misbehavior" to repeatedly extend the copyright term. So far there have been only two, in both cases to harmonize to the European standard of "life of grandchildren" [copyrightalliance.org]. The Copyright Act of 1976 and the interim extensions that preceded it were the first to adopt the "life of grandchildren" standard, and the Bono Act merely updated it for longer life expectancy. Unless there's a breakthroug
I've always thought this (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've always thought this (Score:4, Informative)
That's how the synthetic voices of Siri and Cortana are made, too. Voice actors read texts, the recordings are split up into phonemes and these are then used to synthesize the actual words we can hear. These computer voices aren't made on a word-by-word basis anymore.
The recorded text however are nonsense texts that are specially designed to contain a maximum phonem variety in a minimum of recorded text and that way of course it's known how many vairants of each phonem are available exactly where in the recording. So, with enough recorded material it should be possible to extract the same phonem variety. It's just more work as you have to find them first
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The technology to extract and create phonemes has probably improved since Siri's voice was created.
Re:I've always thought this (Score:4, Informative)
The number of actual complete words recorded can improve the overall quality of the synthesized voice. Phonetically pasted-together words are still not quite as good as complete, well formed words. (That's why they always have the talent read the full set of numbers instead of synthesizing words like "eleven".) Reading a phonetically complete subset of words is a good way to capture the most usable portion of the voice in the minimum amount of time. That's important when you're paying the talent by the hour, but it's not necessarily going to produce the overall best results. Having access to the full body of work will not only provide the needed phonemes, but will include a good vocabulary of higher quality words.
Of course, having a slightly choppy computer voice is one way of overcoming the uncanny valley. Holding a conversation with a dead person might be unnerving for some people. Hearing the little clips and weird tone changes as the voice is reassembled would be a constant reminder that you're actually talking to a computer, not a person, and might be of some comfort.
Re:I've always thought this (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, having a slightly choppy computer voice is one way of overcoming the uncanny valley. Holding a conversation with a dead person might be unnerving for some people. Hearing the little clips and weird tone changes as the voice is reassembled would be a constant reminder that you're actually talking to a computer, not a person, and might be of some comfort.
So we are recreating the voice of a dead person as a computer voice to honor the person who actually gave a computer a human voice. That's no uncanny valley, that's a first class uncanny round-trip!
That's what Vocaloids are (Score:2)
They could simply have found a similar voice. (Score:2)
But I guess going the emulation route is cooler.
Re:Wishing for a spin-off (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd love a darker series Colonists crash landing on an alien planet disconnected from the rest of the federation Losing most of their technology. Finding out they're not alone and there is a semi-hostile primitive species there. Then they have to struggle, how hard do they try and stick with the prime directive, and non-interference, how does it impact their own survival.
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I'd love a darker series Colonists crash landing on an alien planet disconnected from the rest of the federation Losing most of their technology. Finding out they're not alone and there is a semi-hostile primitive species there. Then they have to struggle, how hard do they try and stick with the prime directive, and non-interference, how does it impact their own survival.
So basically you want to watch LOST but set in the Star Trek universe? Why not make it a planet full of zombies and then you can call it "Walking Dead: Lost in Space"? Starfleet crash lands on an alien planet stranded with no communication. On the planet, they discover a planet full of zombies. Cobbling together the spare parts from their shuttlecraft they erect an encampment with a solar powered force field. During ever episode they try to sneak out of the encampment to search for food and supplies me
those poor people (Score:2)
instead, how about:
1. a comedy
2. a musical
3. a war movie
4. a police procedural
5. a lawyer show
6. a doctor show
7. a buddy cop movie
8. a special episode where the Harlem Globetrotters drop by
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Because that theme hasn't been tried a billion times in other shows?
I can think of a half dozen shows which fit that criteria and with only marginal retrofitting it'd be what you describe.
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Or we could do something radical, something that hasn't been around for a decade or two: Come up with a new idea instead of rehashing old ones and putting some more lipstick on the corpse.
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Also remember this was a TV Show.
In TV Shows having talking computers is useful to help move the plot along. In real life, even if I computer can talk, I turn off the volume most of the time, because I can read faster, skip useless information, and interface faster than verbally.
It didn't work for Roger Ebert (Score:1)
Like Majel he had 25+ years of recorded material from TV shows like At the Movies. He even hired a firm to create a voice from that material. As it turned out, that 25+ years of recording was inadequate to create a working synthetic voice.
I suspect Roger had more material than Majel as he was doing 22 minute review shows for some many years compared to Majel's occasional appearance
phoenetic samples aren't enough (Score:2)
nahhhh (Score:2)
Fuck that. I want a John Wayne styled LCARS first.
"Life is hard when you're stupid."
"Howdy, partner."
"That'll be the day."
"Take 'er easy there, Pilgrim."
"I wouldn't make it a habit of calling me that, son."
Re:Any Happily Passed Aways? (Score:4, Funny)
Although Barrett sadly passed away in 2008, she took several roles on the show over the years . . .
Wow, although she was dead, she still took on several roles?!? She must have been one amazing lady!!
Great journalism skills you got there.
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This is the technology of the future.
For a while workers had retirement to look forwards to.
The millennial generation, because of a greying population, won't have retirement, they'll have to work until they die
In the Star Trek future it gets even worse - you have to keep working after you die.
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Re: Any Happily Passed Aways? (Score:1)
It's called "tenting ones fingers." And yes, it's eeeeexcellent.
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The part that is more bothersome is they collected words from all her different parts.
Her role as the ship computer vs. Lwaxana she is acting very differently. It would be a computer with some of the words expressed very emotionally with others very cut and dry. Also that doesn't say much for the show, because if they are going to have the computer say the same stuff, it sounds like a lot of recycled plots.
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They don't play a recording of each word. They have a recording of each individual sound, that lasts a fraction of second, that a person uses. They string these individual sounds together to form any word. It's how they made Siri and Cortana.
Phonetics, Not Performances (Score:2)
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English has more exceptions than rules. (put, putt; boot, book; school, scissors.. you get the gist). That must've been a tedious but interesting project.
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The part that is more bothersome is they collected words from all her different parts.
Her role as the ship computer vs. Lwaxana she is acting very differently. It would be a computer with some of the words expressed very emotionally with others very cut and dry. Also that doesn't say much for the show, because if they are going to have the computer say the same stuff, it sounds like a lot of recycled plots.
I'd have thought there'd have been more than enough vocal sampling for her just as the computer voice. Actually, I'm surprised the computer voice wasn't *already* in phonetic format just for all of the video games. Although she'd be able to give the most natural performance by recording the lines normally, I could see one of the (many, many, many) ST game developers realizing that they'd need TTS ability here and there (eg, player-generated names) and do the vocal data collection needed for it.
Anyway, Majel
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Fred Astaire came back from beyond the grave to sell a vacuum cleaner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Well, considering how wooden he acted, Shatner died somewhere in the early 1960s.
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When I step away from this keyboard I have a life waiting for me.
LOL Course you do, that's why you're in here trying to troll some neckbeards. I almost feel sorry for you.