
               SPEECH
  Computers have become quite good at speaking. 
  You can also buy a talking car that tells you when it needs an 
oil change, a talking bathroom scale that makes cynical comments 
about how much your weight's gone up since yesterday, and many 
other talking devices. You can even buy Coke from a talking 
vending machine that invites you to deposit your coins and then 
says ``Thank you''.

            Talking watch
  Whenever I want to find out the time, I just press a button on 
my wrist watch, and its computer voice proudly proclaims the time 
in perfect English. Whenever I get lonely at night and want 
somebody to talk to me, I just press the watch's button and 
thrill to the sound of its soothing voice.
  It also acts as the world's most humane alarm clock. Instead of 
giving an awful ring, its human voice says, ``Attention, please! 
It's 7:30AM.'' Then it plays some jazzed up Bach.
  If I'm still sleepy and ignore the alarm, five minutes later it 
will say, ``Attention, please! It's 7:35AM. Please hurry.'' It 
will also subject me to some more Bach. It will keep reminding me 
every five minutes, until I'm awake enough to turn off the alarm.
  You can buy the Vox Watch at Radio Shack for $39.95.

        Reading to the blind
  The most impressive talking device ever invented is the 
Kurzweil Reading Machine, which reads books to the blind.
  It looks like a photocopying machine. Just lay a book on top of 
the machine, and the machine reads the book to you, even if the 
book is laid down crookedly and has dirt on it and has multiple 
columns and photos and uses weird type.
  When it was invented many years ago, it used to cost $50,000. 
Then the price dropped to $20,000. Then the price dropped even 
lower, but it still costs more than the average blind person can 
afford. To use such a machine, you must either be rich or live 
near a library owning the machine.
  Most blind people who are computerized use cheaper devices 
instead: an IBM PC clone supplemented by a scanner, voice 
synthesizer, and cheap software.

        Can computers listen?
  Though computers are good talkers, they're not good listeners.
  No computer's been invented yet that will replace your 
secretary and let you dictate a letter to it. The computer 
devices currently on the market have tiny vocabularies, require 
you to pause after every word, and need to be ``trained'' to 
understand your accent.


                MUSIC
  Computerized music is advancing rapidly. Now you can sit down 
at a portable piano-style keyboard (light enough to carry in one 
hand), bang out a tune, feed the tune to a computer, and have the 
computer edit out your errors, play the tune back using the tone 
qualities of any instrument you wish (or even a whole orchestra), 
and print the score on paper.
  Such developments are shaking up the entire music industry.
  When you watch a TV commercial or movie, the background music 
that sounds like a beautiful orchestra or band is often produced 
by just a single person sitting at a computerized music 
synthesizer. The imitation of orchestral instruments is so exact 
that even professional musicians can't hear the difference. As a 
result, whole orchestras of musicians are now unemployed.
  Music synthesizers come in two categories. One kind's cheap 
($25 to $500) and easy to use, but produces sounds that are 
tinny. The other kind produces beautiful sounds but costs a lot 
($500 to $20,000) and is harder to learn to master. Programmers 
are trying to meld those two categories together. I wish they'd 
hurry up!
                                              Ultimate Music Machine
                                         Musicians, programmers, 
and engineers are working together to create the Ultimate Music 
Machine, which makes all other musical instruments obsolete. You 
can buy all its parts at your local computer and music stores, 
but the software and hardware that connects the parts is awkward. 
I expect some company will eventually build an assembled version 
that you just plug into the wall for immediate fun.
                                         Part 1: the tone-quality 
creator The Ultimate Music Machine can imitate all other musical 
instruments. To make it imitate an instrument, play a few notes 
of that instrument into the machine's microphone. The machine 
makes a digital recording of the instrument, analyzes the 
recording, and stores the analysis on a 3-inch floppy disk.
                                         The machine's analysis 
is quite sophisticated. For example, it realizes that a violin 
note has a vibrato (because the violinist's finger wiggles), that 
each piano note begins with a bang and ends with a hum, and that 
the piano's bass notes sound ``fatter'' than the treble notes 
(because the bass notes are made from different kinds of 
strings).
                                         The machine lets you 
edit the analysis, to create totally new tone qualities, such as 
``piolin'' (which is a compromise between a piano and a violin).
                                         When you buy the 
machine, it comes with recordings of the most popular 
instruments, and lets you add your own and edit them. It also 
lets you use fundamental waveforms (such as sine waves, square 
waves, and triangle waves), which act as building blocks for 
inventing sounds that are wilder.
                                         Part 2: the note creator 
The machine includes a piano-style keyboard (with black and white 
notes on it). To feed the machine a melody, tap the melody on the 
keyboard. You can also play chords. The machine notices which 
notes you strike the hardest, so it records your accents.
                                         The machine includes a 
pitch-bend dial, which you turn to make the notes slide up the 
scale, like a slide trombone.
                                         If you're not good at 
the keyboard, use the machine's screen instead, which displays a 
musical staff and lets you move notes onto the staff by using a 
mouse. You can also use the mouse to edit any errors you made on 
the keyboard, and to create repetitions and increase the tempo.
                                         If you fear mice and 
keyboards, just sing into the machine's microphone. The machine 
notices which notes you've sung and records them.
                                         If you're too lazy to 
create a melody or harmony, the machine creates its own. Its 
built-in computer analyzes your favorite music, notices its 
rhythms, note transitions, and harmonic structures, and then 
composes its own music in the same style.
                                         Part 3: output The 
machine plays the editing music through stereo speakers. As the 
music plays, the complete score moves across the screen, in 
traditional music notation. The machine also prints the score on 
paper. Yes, the machine prints a complete score showing how you 
sang into the mike or tickled the keys!
                                         Vendors The Ultimate 
Music Machine is built from music synthesizers. The most popular 
synthesizers are made by four Japanese companies: Casio, Roland, 
Yamaha, and Korg. Their synths cost from $25 to $3000 and contain 
tiny computers. For extra computing power, attach a Macintosh 
computer by using a Musical Instrument Digital Interface cable 
(MIDI cable). To print pretty scores cheaply, add Deluxe Music 
Construction Set, a Mac program published by Electronics Arts for 
under $50.