Hyderabad: The voice of Karen Jacobsen, an Australian voiceover artist, has become one of the most constant features in vehicles worldwide.Her voice is used in Google Maps and other GPS apps to help motorists find their way around routes they are unfamiliar with.More than one billion Google devices have been with the Maps feature, to date. “The only woman who men take command from without questioning,” Jacobsen says jokingly.Jacobsen told Great Big Story, a London-based documentaries company, “I am known as the only woman, men would take directions from.”She said that in the early 2000’s she was approached by GPS maker Garmin to be a voice artist for the feature of Google Maps. According to her Australian accent was the most suitable for the role as “It is pleasant to listen.”Jacobsen told the Great Big Story, “My speaking voice ended up in over a billion GPS and smartphone devices giving direction to people around the world. It’s me who says you have reached your destination.”When asked about her background, she said, “I’m originally from Mackay, which is a town in North Queensland near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. I wanted to become a professional singer and move to America, and I did follow that dream to New York.””Not long after I moved there in 2002, there was an audition for voiceover artists, and a client was looking for a native Australian, female, voiceover artist living in the northeast of the United States. I realized I met all the qualifications. Therefore, went for that audition and got the job.”She also said that her Australian ancestry provided an advantage over her competitors.She said, “At that time, I was told that the Australian voice was a high priority because the Australian accent was considered the most pleasant English-speaking accent to listen to.”According to Jacobsen, her voice was subsequently synthesized for highways and streets that weren’t initially specified in her screenplay after she was initially asked to record generic traffic terminology.The artificial creation of a human voice, known as voice synthesis, is useful for text-to-speech conversion.Jacobsen said, “There was a huge script, a massive script! The team of engineers had figured out every combination of syllables possible for me to record, which allowed them to create the GPS voice based on my speaking voice.””Some of the phrases I recorded include: at the next intersection, turn left’; at the roundabout, turn right; ‘you have reached your destination’,” added Jacobsen.She said that for the GPS engineers to get the perfect voice, she was instructed to say the phrase “approximately” 168 times in a row throughout the recording process.According to Jacobsen, speaking with her voice has been “fun,” and she is pleased that her voice will continue to be familiar on phones for many years to come.She also told Great Big Story, “My voice is gonna live on forever, while the power is gonna go to my head, I feel like it’s mind-blowing.”Furthermore, Karen Jacobsen’s voice has also been used in Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, which uses voice recognition to respond.Ironically, because Siri can’t comprehend her voice, Jacobsen finds it difficult to use the app.She told The Daily Telegraph, “My husband can ask Siri a question, my son can ask her a question; they get answers but when I ask a question, she doesn’t understand me. We’ve experimented over and over but it is just the weirdest thing.””I don’t think it is because I don’t speak clearly, I have very good enunciation. I just find it absolutely perplexing,” she added.Jacobsen has also tried her hand at music as a singer.
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