Keepad is available as a softcopy for $29.95 from www.keepoint.com. It can be upgraded from Keepoint 7, base product of recently released Keepoint 7 Series (available FREE of charge) to which Keepad also belongs. Keepad can be further upgraded to Keepoint 7 Pro, for $50.00.

Headquartered in Japan, Saora Inc., was founded in July 1999. Saora is committed to excellence in providing Internet products and services, priding itself on its products' user interfaces, which are highly sophisticated, yet easy-to-use. Saora, Inc. has been shipping English and Japanese versions of Keepoint family of products since 2000. Saora Inc. is led by Dr. Aruna Rohra, who, prior to founding Saora, was with Canon Inc. at their R&D Headquarters in Tokyo, for fifteen years.

I've Gotta Sing

And that’s crux of matter. The appeal of virtual entertainers probably will be quite limited—at least for foreseeable future—because they can’t tour, do drugs, get into fights, sue their record labels, promote world peace, raise money for charity, or do anything live flesh and blood performers can do. We, audience, love performer as much as performer’s music. And, in this case, that’s a good thing. Tony Bennett, White Stripes, Diana Krall, Toby Keith, Frederica von Stade, and all of American Idol wannabes are quite safe from Vocaloid elimination.

Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

But voice over talents may not be so lucky. Voice talents are not seen. They don’t have adoring fans, except their moms and, maybe, a few other voice-over talents. They perform in short increments: 30 seconds, 60 seconds, a 30 minute narration on how to make a million in real estate. If speech synthesis has reached a point of sophistication sufficient enough to create virtual singers, what’s to prevent a software genius from developing a program to replace voice talent? Write program. Sample 300 to 500 voices, male and female, each with unique characteristics, incorporate them into software and, voilá, Instant Announcer in a Box. Just load your script text into program, which converts text to perfectly uttered speech. No retakes. With a few clicks of mouse to tweak inflection, emphasis, pacing, dynamics, etc. to polish natural feel of voice-over and you’re done.

Far-fetched? If entertainment’s got a virtual band call The Bots, why can’t advertising and marketing have its own virtual Don Pardo?

Well, it seems maybe they can...

©Peter Drew