Two cool audio processing demos

We begin our discussion of audio processing with examples of speech recognition and synthesis.

I've just added two examples you might want to play around with. The first is a voice synthesis demonstration that combines text-to-speech with avatar facial animation. The second is Google's yellow page application, Goog411, which can look up a business phone number and place a call, display a map or send text information. (Goog411 is designed for mobile or desktop use).

Try the speech synthesizer. Can you understand it if someone else enters the text? Does the pronunciation change if you end a sentence with a question mark? An explanation point?

Try Goog411 and see if it can find California State University in Carson, California. Does it work well if you have an accent? For a man or woman? When there is ambient noise?