在許多業內人士看來，亞馬遜Kindle在報業和圖書領域的作用足以與iPod在唱片業的作用媲美，但是Kindle的電腦語音功能卻存在不少瑕疵，甚至無法正確朗讀美國總統奧巴馬的姓名。

亞馬遜自Kindle 2開始就增加了語音朗讀功能，但是該功能的效果卻令人不敢恭維。而且，這一功能在兩個非常關鍵的單詞上出現發音錯誤。例如，美國總統奧巴馬的全名巴拉克- 奧巴馬（Barack Obama）。在Kindle中，巴拉克（Barack）的被朗讀成布萊克（Black），而奧巴馬（Obama）則被讀成阿拉巴馬（Alabama）。 由於美國總統的姓名經常見諸於各大報端，因此其影響是顯而易見的。

雖然電腦語音技術已經誕生很長時間了，但這一技術很明顯仍然有待提升。

位於美國匹茲堡的Cepstral就是一家專門研究電腦語音技術的公司，其技術還被谷歌採用。該公司業務開發主管帕特裏克-德克斯特 （Patrick Dexter）說：“這是一種非常高級的技術。大家應該都記得英國著名物理學家史蒂芬-霍金（Stephen Hawking）的聲音，它非常像機器人的發聲。現在的目標就是讓電腦語音與真人發聲渾然一體。”

亞馬遜於當地時間本周三發布了新版的Kindle DX電子書閱讀器。在被問及Kindle無法正確朗讀奧巴馬的姓名時，伴隨著其標志性的爽朗笑聲，亞馬遜首席執行官傑夫-貝佐斯（Jeff Bezos）回答道：“真不幸。”

第二天，亞馬遜發言人安德魯-赫德勒（Andrew Herdener）通過電子郵件表示，為Kindle提供電腦文本-語音轉換引擎的Nuance Communications已經修正了巴拉克-奧巴馬的正確讀音。他寫道：“Nuance已經更新了詞典，我們計劃將其整合到近期的Kindle升級包 內。”

很明顯，這只是一個簡單的疏忽.Nuance的一名高管史蒂夫-錢伯斯（Steve Chambers）說：“這種事情時有發生。我們甚至已經不認為這是什么漏洞了。如果該技術碰到一個從未見過的單詞，那就只能像小孩一樣自己摸索著發音。 ”Nuance還為蘋果、全美鐵路客運公司（Amtrak）、美聯航、美國銀行等企業提供電腦語音技術支持。

除此之外，Kindle也無法正確朗讀出NBA球隊波士頓凱爾特人隊（Celtics）的發音。

感謝 chinaz面面 的投稿

http://big5.chinaz.com:88/www.chinaz.com/News/IT/050W515H009.html

＝＝＝＝＝我是愛吐槽的紐約時報＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

The President’s Name Trips Up a Would-Be Voice of the News

The Amazon Kindle, an electronic reader, has been lavished with praise by hopeful newspaper and book executives who say they believe it has the potential to do for newspapers and books what the iPod did for music.

But if the Kindle, which not only displays the news but also speaks it with a computerized voice, is ever to be the savior of print media, it needs to bone up on its pronunciation.

In particular, the voice of the Kindle mispronounces two important words that show up often in the pages of newspapers: “Barack” (the device rhymes it with “black”) and “Obama” (sounds like “Alabama”).

The science behind computerized voice features has come a long way, but apparently still has a ways to go.

“The technology is very advanced; everyone has the memory of the Stephen Hawking voice, which was very robotic,” said Patrick Dexter, the director of business development at Cepstral, a Pittsburgh company that does such work and has licensed its technology to Google. “The goal right now is to get a voice that sounds almost indistinguishable from a real person.”

The latest version of the Kindle was unveiled Wednesday at a press conference in Manhattan and has a big screen aimed at newspaper readers.

When asked about the error in pronouncing the president’s name, Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon.com, said, with his trademark laugh, “that’s unfortunate.”

The next day, an Amazon spokesman, Andrew Herdener, wrote in an e-mail message that Nuance Communications, the Massachusetts-based company that licenses its text-to-speech engine to Amazon for the Kindle, had added the correct pronunciation of the president’s name.

“Nuance has updated its dictionary, which we plan to include in an upcoming wireless update to Kindle devices,” he wrote.

Apparently, the matter was a simple oversight. “These things happen a lot,” said Steve Chambers, an executive at Nuance, which also licenses its technology to Apple, Amtrak, United Airlines and Bank of America. “It’s not even considered a bug. If it encounters a word it has never seen, it approaches it almost like a kid, phonetically.”