Cambridge speech technology firm acquired by Google

Back in September of this year Business Weekly forecast that ‘Phonetic Arts could be talking millions as it cashes in on its incredible surge to fame as a games industry superstar.’

Less than three months on, it has been announced that the young Cambridge speech technology specialist has been acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum.

Only founded in 2006 and having launched its first product only last October, Phonetic Arts boasts global giants Sony, Ninja Theory and EA Sports on its client list. Its PA 2010 product suite allows for the creation of synthetic voices capable of delivering any sentence in a natural, expressive way, allowing computer games to adopt any type of voice.

Mike Cohen, Manager of Speech Technology at Google announced the acquisition in a blog post: “We’ve recently made some strides with speech technologies and tools that take voice input: for example, we launched Voice Search, Voice Input and Voice Actions for mobile phones, allowing you to speak web searches, compose emails by voice, ask your phone to play any song, and more. And last year we started automatically transcribing speech to produce captions on YouTube videos.

“But what about when the computer speaks to you—in other words, voice output? There are already places you can hear this in action today—for example, Google Translate “speaks” translated text in multiple languages, and you can listen to navigation instructions as you drive—but there’s still a lot to do.

“That’s why we’re pleased to announce we’ve acquired Phonetic Arts, a speech synthesis company based in Cambridge, England. Phonetic Arts’ team of researchers and engineers work at the cutting edge of speech synthesis, delivering technology that generates natural computer speech from small samples of recorded voice.

“There’s a particular focus right now in the U.K. on technology and innovation, and we’re delighted to be deepening our investment in the country with this acquisition.

“We already have a strong engineering center in London and look forward to welcoming Phonetic Arts to the team.”

Phonetic Arts confirmed the deal on the homepage of their website with a statement: “We’re excited to announce that Phonetic Arts has been acquired by Google! We see great opportunities integrating with their technologies and products, and look forward to being part of their world-class speech team. Most of all, we are excited about the great opportunities in speech technology that lie ahead.”