Founder: Jonathan G. Secora Pearl, PhD
Motto: The Science of Segmentation/The Art of Perception
BizStarts Role: Venture Track, coaching, mentoring, assistance with SBIR grant applications
Today's speech synthesis is emotionally flat, inflexible, and limited. Today's end-users have grown accustomed to robotic voices - just as the public in the 1970s grew inured to jagged and primitive computer graphics. Those who settled then were in for a dramatic awakening, when once-unimagined capabilities began to emerge because a few visionaries refused to be satisfied with "good enough". The same can be said today about speech synthesis.
Is there anyone who would argue that the technology is poised to replace voice-over actors in animated films; ready to read their children bedtime stories; or able to port a voice into a foreign language, dialect or accent for localization of business or entertainment media? Perceptral's technology fills this niche, with unmatched control over speech rate, our proprietary Morphlex TM to abolish the carbon-copy pronunciation of 
today's speech synthesis, and unrivaled handling for accent modification, voice morphing and blending between voices. If the world is our canvas, and our imagination the only hurdle, what will tomorrow sound like?
Envision a future where synthesized voices assume different accents and registers in response to the communicative environment; where those voices speak multiple languages with native or near native pronunciation, and teach humans to do likewise.
Consider a world where dubbing of films, television shows, games and informational broadcasts can retain the voice of the original actor or speaker. Imagine Voice of the User TM personalized synthetic voices that sound like you but are able to communicate autonomously, reading documents to others; or able to speak a foreign language you may not even know- translating your words in your voice in real time.
Jonathan Pearl received a PhD in Music with an emphasis in Cognitive Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He founded Perceptral in 2008 to revolutionize speech technology.
"I was in uncharted waters - not only without a map, but without a sail."
"In 2008, when I moved from Southern California to Wisconsin with my family and a cache of ideas, hopes, and dreams about cutting edge research and development in speech and sound technology, I was in uncharted waters - not only without a map, but without a sail. The tight-knit, knowledgeable, committed community of people and resources available to entrepreneurs in our state provided the map and sail I needed to get started to thrive. BizStarts has been a lynchpin the that process almost from the start."
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For more information contact Todd Sobotka at tsobotka@bizstartsmilwaukee.com or 414-921-0909.