Thursday, June 01, 2006
Mona Lisa Speaks
... but not to Dan Brown. Acoustician Matsumi Suzuki recreated the voice of the unknown model by measuring her face and skull. Suzuki also determined the model's height by measuring the size of her hands.
"Once we have that, we can create a voice very similar to that of the person concerned," Suzuki told Reuters in an interview at his Tokyo office last week.
"We have recreated the voices of a lot of famous people that were very close to the real thing and have been used in film dubbing."
Suzuki believes his recreations are ninety percent accurate. The article also relates:
Suzuki's work has made contributions to criminal investigations -- in one case after he successfully aged a person's voice by a decade. A recording of the voice was broadcast on television, leading to the apprehension of a suspect.
