If you haven't read the epic Equire interview, go do that before reading the rest of this post. Famed film critic and all-around awesome human being Roger Ebert has not been able to speak for four years, since undergoing cancer-related surgery. He's been communicating with hand signals, monotone text-to-speech software, and a wonderful ongoing stream of Twitter updates.
Today is a big day, though: on Oprah, he debuts his new voice, which sounds a lot like the old voice we all knew and loved. In the video above, his wife Chaz hears it for the first time. Yeah, I cried.
Scotland-based tech company CereProc create the text-to-speech voice using archived recordings of Ebert speaking (specifically, DVD commentary tracks). The result is amazing. More: Ebert's own blog, CNN, ABC News, Videogum
