Rae lends voice on Google Asst

‘Feel music’

LOS ANGELES, Oct 10, (RTRS): Now you can make Google Assistant talk – and sing – like Issa Rae, star and co-creator of HBO’s “Insecure.”

The actress-writer-producer is the latest celebrity to bring her voice to a digital virtual assistant. Rae is the second celeb cameo for Google Assistant, after singer John Legend’s mellifluous vocalizations came to the platform earlier this year. Amazon is getting in the game, too, recently announcing that a voice pack for Samuel L. Jackson will be coming to Alexa.

Rae’s voice is available as a cameo on the Google Assistant starting today, available in English for a limited time in the US for free. John Legend’s pipes are also still available as an option. To switch to Rae’s voice, users simply say “Hey Google, talk like Issa,” or select it in the “Assistant voice” settings section.

To bring her voice to Google Assistant, the tech giant used its speech-synthesis technology, WaveNet, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze speech patterns and then generates audio based on text input.

Rae said it required more than 40 hours of her saying “random sentences” in the recording booth to get the Google Assistant trained to replicate her speech. “One of the most fun days was just being myself – I give people compliments,” she said. Rae said listening to her own synthesized voice on Google Assistant was a bit bizarre: “I’ve heard it, and it’s me, which is very interesting.”

When she was first approached last year by Google about the project, she said, “I was like, ‘What? Me?’” While she was excited at the offer, she admitted, “I was a little scared ... Google is huge, and I had never done anything like this.” Ultimately, she dove in: “I do consider myself to have a very helpful voice,” Rae said.

Once Rae’s voice is activated, Google Assistant users can ask for things like weather forecasts or answers to questions like, “When’s the first day of winter?” You can also ask Rae to tell a joke, sing a song, tell a secret, or provide a quote. There are also a few Easter eggs with Rae’s cameo, such as when you ask, “Hey Google, do you have any dating advice?” or “Hey Google, are you a writer?”

She can even provide a motivational message of encouragement, such as when you ask “How do I look?” Said Rae, “I am a big pumper-upper.”

All other responses will continue to be in one of the original Google Assistant voices. Rae’s cameo voice is available on any device that has the Google Assistant, including Google Home speakers, smart displays like the new Nest Hub Max, and on mobile for Android and iOS.

Rae has garnered an Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations for best comedy actress for her role in “Insecure.” She rose to prominence with her web series “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.” Her YouTube channel “Issa Rae Presents,” which has over 450,000 subscribers, on Oct. 17 will premiere drama series “King Ester” starring Angelica Ross (“Pose”) and Janet Hubert (“Fresh Prince of BelAir”).

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Twin sisters Hermon and Heroda Berhane love dancing but can’t hear the music because they’re both deaf, so the invention of a jacket with sensors that enables them to feel the different sounds has transformed their nights out in London clubs.

The “Sound Shirt”, created by London-based fashion company CuteCircuit, has 16 sensors embedded in its fabric, so wearers can feel violins on their arms, for example, while drums beat on their backs.

The Berhane twins, who lost their hearing at a young age, say modelling the shirts has given them a brand new experience.

“It’s almost like feeling the depth of the music,” says Hermon. “It just feels as though we can move along with it.”

Francesca Rosella, co-founder and chief creative officer of CuteCircuit, which designs fashion wearable technology, said the shirts allowed deaf people to feel music through sensations.

“Inside the shirt - that by the way is completely textiles, there are no wires inside, so we’re only using smart fabrics - we have a combination of microelectronics ... very thin and flexible, and conductive fabrics,” she said.