Tom Baker in Kinky Timewarp

IN A BIZARRE attempt to raise funds for the UK's Shelter charity over Xmas, BT has used text-to-speech technology to record a version of ancient Kinks' classic, 'You Really Got Me'.

The voice sampled to produce the track for BT's 'Text Aid' is, however, Tom Baker's. He's best known for his role as Dr Who although he now narrates Little Britain.

The actual conversion is supplied by Nuance Communications' RealSpeak. But the real reason for using Tom Baker is to popularise BT's text messaging to landline service.

So a text message sent to a fixed telephone line number will be read out to the recipient with Tom Baker's voice.

Those of a masochistic nature might want to buy the Kinky track from eMusic or iTunes.

BT would probably have had more success if they'd got Tom Baker's voice to sing the Dr Who theme tune. After me now, "Dum-de-dum, Dum-de-dum …" µ

L'INQS
Nuance
Text Aid