+++ INTERSPEECH 2015 – February Update +++

Dear colleagues,

The preparations for Interspeech 2015 in Dresden are running at an increasing pace, and I got the impression that we have a very active contribution from the community this year. Bernd Möbius and Elmar Nöth, our TCP Chairs, have set up a comprehensive and balanced group of Area Chairs for the new areas we have agreed upon with ISCA, and which will soon be published on our website. The ten preliminarily accepted Special Sessions and Challenges are active in collecting contributions; as an example, the session “Advanced Crowdsourcing for Speech and Beyond” has received 17 requests for research funds, which will now be evaluated according to their fit to the special session topic. And our sponsorship, industry and exhibition chairs, Tim Fingscheidt, Claudia Pohlink, Jimmy Kunzmann and Reinhold Häb-Umbach, are actively soliciting sponsoring money to make the event most affordable for you. 

The 2^nd Call for Papers is out (deadline March 20):
http://interspeech2015.org/calls/call-for-papers/

In addition there is a special Call for Papers with Virtual Presentation which solicits contributions to this special format we will experiment with at this year’s Interspeech for the first time, and which will be limited to exceptional cases which otherwise would not be able to participate:
http://interspeech2015.org/calls/call-for-papers-with-virtual-presentation/

In addition, there is still the option to submit proposals for Tutorials (deadline March 20) and Show and Tell contributions (deadline April 17):
http://interspeech2015.org/calls/call-for-tutorials/
http://interspeech2015.org/calls/call-for-show-and-tell/

All further information can be found on our Website which Tim Polzehl is eager to keep updated.

For automatically receiving continuous updates, we recommend that you follow us on Twitter (@interspeech2015), or that you use social channels such as LinkedIn or Facebook. And: Please do not delete your Interspeech 2014 App, it will automatically receive an update for Interspeech 2015.

Finally, Dresden is also polishing her historical charm, and for Interspeech attendants the most important aspect of this might be the second contribution to our historical series, which this time is dedicated to the world’s first successful attempt of a mechanical speech synthesiser.

On behalf of the organizing team,

Sebastian Möller (General Chair),
Oliver Jokisch (Publicity Chair)

A View from Dresden onto the History of Speech Communication

Part 2: Von Kempelen's 'Sprachmaschine' and the beginning of speech synthesis

Complete article including figures available at: http://interspeech2015.org/conference/historical-review/

The speaking machine of Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734-1804) can be considered as the first successful attempt of a mechanical speech synthesiser. The Austrian-Hungarian engineer is still famous for his 'chess turk' but it was his 'Sprachmaschine' that can count as a milestone in (speech) technology. In his book 'Mechanismus der menschlichen Sprache nebst der Beschreibung einer sprechenden Maschine' (published 1791, no English translation yet) he described the function of the machine which was intended to give a voice for deaf people. Contemporary personalities like Goethe confirmed the authenticity of a child voice when the speaking machine was played.

How does the machine work?

The machine consists of bellows that is connected with a tube to a wooden wind chest. On the other side of the wind chest a round wooden block represents the interface to an open rubber funnel (as the vocal tract). In the wind chest there are two modified recorders to produce the fricatives [s] and [S]. The voice generator is located inside the wooden block. The artificial voice is generated with the help of a reed pipe borrowed by the pipe organ. It has an ivory reed vibrating against a wooden hollow shallot (like in a clarinet). The trained human operator plays the machine like a musical instrument. The right elbows control the air pressure by pressing on the bellows, two fingers of the right hand close or open the access for stops and nasals, two other fingers of the right hand for the fricatives. Vowels are performed by the palm of left hand in different ways.

Replicas

Apart from parts of one of the originals that are hosted at the Deutsches Museum in Munich there are several reconstructions based on Kempelen's quite detailed descriptions. The replicas built in Budapest, Vienna, York and Saarbrücken allow a lively demonstration of the mechanical generation of speech as well its acoustic analysis but also perception tests with today's listeners. Interestingly, the art of constructing artificial voices led to the profession of 'voice makers' in Eastern-German Thuringia (more information in one of the next newsletters). Original products of the Thuringian 'Stimmenmacher' as well as one of the replicas located at TU Dresden are at display of the HAPS (Historische Akustisch-Phonetische Sammlung) available for ears, eyes (and hands) at the re-opening of HAPS at 4 Sept, which is also the start of the Interspeech satellite Workshop on The History of Speech Communication Research (HSCR 2015).

Jürgen Trouvain and Fabian Brackhane