Science Friday The long quest to make machines talk As early as the 1700s, scientists built speaking machines that, through various combinations of reeds, bellows, and pipes, simulated the sounds of the human voice. Then, in 1939, Bell Labs debuted its “VODER” (Voice Operation DEmonstratoR), which simulated the physics of speech with electrical circuits—in a decidedly robotic tone. Today, of course, we have the […]