Scientists Challenged to Teach Computers to Talk

You'll never meet "Crystal', but this disembodied computer voice will read aloud whatever you ask her to say. Type a few sentences and "Crystal" will pronounce your message almost as well as a human would. Only a slightly robotic accent betrays the fact that a machine is talking. Reading aloud is the simplest challenge in the 40-year struggle to teach human languages to the computers. Other computer-language skills are more complicated. They include taking dictation, responding to questions or commands, identifying a person who's speaking, translating speech from one language to another, and carrying on a modestly intelligent conversation on a limited subject.