Watch Roger Ebert Get His Voice Back

While a lot of people know Roger Ebert best as a television personality, for me I’ve always admired him most as a writer. When he lost his voice due to cancer a few years ago, he responded by pouring even more energy into his writing. Now his journal and his twitter feed are a must read.

But Ebert had always been a talker and for someone who made his way in this world on his ability to speak his opinions, it must have been even more maddening and frustrating than it would be for most, to have his skill taken forcibly away from him. For years now he’s been communicating in person by computer, a laptop which speaks what he wants to say as he types it. If you’ve ever heard Stephen Hawking or seen someone making fun of Stephen Hawking, you have a pretty good idea of how that must sound. Robotic. Flat. Emotionless. Roger Ebert could speak, but not in his own voice.

Now that’s changed. A Scottish company has developed a program which uses recordings of things Roger has said before, surely there must have been thousands of hours to draw from, to simulate his actual voice.

Roger demonstrated this new technology today on Oprah. It’s the first time Roger Ebert’s voice has been heard since 2006 and, if you’re a fan of Roger’s (as you should be) or if you have even a shred of human decency inside you, then it’s a beyond touching moment. Selfishly, I’ve missed that voice. Watch Ebert get his voice back in the video below: