Star Trek's iconic computer voice may live on in your phone
Roddenberry Entertainment says Majel Barrett's voice could return 'for things such as Siri.'
Whenever we talk about natural language voice assistants, we invariably draw parallels to the computer on Star Trek. Soon, those comparisons may be a bit more direct: Roddenberry Entertainment has revealed that it has a phonetic library for Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the voice behind the Enterprise's computer. "We're working to get her voice for things such as Siri," The company said in a recent Tweet. "Maybe [the] voice of the computer on [Star Trek Discovery]"
Majel's voice is recorded phonetically, &we're working to get her voice for things such as Siri, maybe voice of the computer on #STDiscovery
— RODDENBERRY (@roddenberry) September 4, 2016
If her voice does make it to the new series, it'll be Discovery's second nod to the work of the actress -- the show's main character will be nicknamed "number one," a reference to Barrett-Roddenberry's role in original series' 1965 pilot. If it doesn't, it's still a win for fans: phonetic recordings are perfect for creating voice assistants. If Roddenberry Entertainment is successful, we could all be hearing Mrs. Barrett's voice again sometime soon.
