Kindle's text-to-speech feature voiced by "Tom"?

The controversial text to speech feature of the Kindle 2 has also been one of its most touted. Well, a dedicated investigator over on the KindleBoards has unearthed the purported true identity of that buttery smooth Kindle 2 voice: and he's called "Tom." Tom seems to have been developed by Nuance Technology, and if you hit the read link, you can hear comparisons of the actual Tom, and the Kindle 2 voice, then form your own opinion -- have we found him out, or is he still shrouded behind a thick curtain of mystery?

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 12:48PM]

I use to work with this mystery Tom -- the voice talent. He's a great guy to work with. You have *no* idea how awful bad voice talents can be to work with until you have to record 2,000 voice prompts for a automated speech recognition system. I used to design the user interfaces for those systems. I have since moved on once I realized how much everyone hates them so.

You can read about him in Boston Globe here:
http://bit.ly/R02wZ

Or visit his professional page here:
http://bit.ly/nQUcP

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 12:56PM]

Tom Glynn also mentioned in the NY Times. http://bit.ly/YWSh1

[jrogue Posted Feb 20th 2009 12:49PM]

Hanks > Cruise

[Groggle Posted Feb 20th 2009 12:54PM]

You just have to ask yourself: does it really frickin matter? So Tom is a Scientologist. Is he going to make a Scientology Zombie Slave out of you? Not unless you willfully allow him to. Be strong, resist the urge to go to Hollywood and be a star. To live in that plastic money filled bubble until you become as odd and messed up as all the rest of them... just be normal. Watch them in grim fascination like I do...

[ran Posted Feb 20th 2009 1:01PM]

If it's some Scientology bigot, I'm asking for compensation.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 1:03PM]

Yeah Aliens.............

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 1:13PM]

Oh great, another way for that insane idiot to push scientology on the sane people in the world. Along with that bart simpson voice actress who has bridged 11 million dollars from FOX to the church of scientidiots.

[hoodieninja Posted Feb 20th 2009 1:11PM]

bricks were shat

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 1:31PM]

Rumor is that Tom Cruise is dyslexic. It makes this all the better.

[crow610 Posted Feb 20th 2009 2:02PM]

wow, well I'll be damed! I just jumped on a couch!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 2:55PM]

And to think that the technology behind "Tom" was once part of a massive investment scam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernout_&_hauspie

The clearing of his throat is awesome, still not entirely "natural" sounding, but they'll get their sooner or later.

[possum5 Posted Feb 20th 2009 5:54PM]

i wonder if the pad will deliver electro shocks as part of any scientology based self help?

and scientology compared to Christ? isn't that like the boy scouts compared to the US Army?

[bonaqo Posted Feb 20th 2009 6:20PM]

Can I have Katie's voice instead ?

[xanatos451 Posted Feb 20th 2009 7:43PM]

Hell, he's small enough, they probably just shoe-horned him inside of the thing.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 20th 2009 7:50PM]

That blows because Tom Cruise is moderately dyslexic.

[lulilo Posted Feb 20th 2009 11:10PM]

Oh, wow! Tom from MySpace? He looks so different on Engadget. So, so different... creepy.

[anantha92 Posted Feb 21st 2009 1:33AM]

Does he speak german too?

[kompakter Posted Feb 21st 2009 5:32PM]

You're GLIB, Engadget. You're GLIB!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 21st 2009 8:20PM]

Does this mean that the kindle will mispronounce the word "literally"?

I've never seen anyone more forcefully mispronounce that word.

It isn't spelled "litrally" as tom pronounces it.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 21st 2009 8:22PM]

Does this mean that the kindle will mispronounce the word "literally"?

I've never seen anyone more forcefully mispronounce that word.

It isn't spelled "litrally" as tom pronounces it.