Talking Clock - Technology

Technology

Most modern talking clocks are based on speech-synthesis integrated circuits that generate speech from sampled, stored data. The rapid technological progress of the 1980s enabled today's high-quality talking products. Early talking clocks employed chips that linked phonemes to generate speech. These products could generate unlimited speech, but it was of relatively poor quality that sounded robotic, at worst, unintelligible. Today's higher-quality speech is produced by sampled-data systems that take elements of an actual human voice. Modern voice synthesis technologies can produce synthesized vocabularies that retain the style of the speaker exactly and are not limited to just perfect English, but can be as varied as Scottish accents, Japanese, and even the voice of a young child. Such voices are all generated using tiny, inexpensive voice chips that are readily available.

Almost all of the latest voice-chipped talking clocks incorporate the female human voice to announce the time. Dr. Mark McKinley, the president of the International Society of Talking Clock Collectors, proposes three possible explanations for this phenomenon. The female voice may be considered more soothing psychologically; it may be a relic of the female voice being historically associated with secretarial (Administrative Assistant) functions; or a feminine voice may possibly simply be softer in a less intrusive way.

Many talking clocks include a light sensor or a setting that will automatically silence them between certain hours (usually between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.).