Alphabet acquired Phonetic Arts, a transaction announced in December 2010.
Phonetic Arts operates in Speech / Voice, is based in United Kingdom (Cambridge). Phonetic Arts was a Cambridge, England speech-synthesis company whose technology generated natural-sounding computer speech from small samples of recorded voice. Google acquired it to advance text-to-speech (voice output), complementing existing voice-input products like Voice Search and Voice Actions.
Strengthen speech-synthesis / voice-output to make automated voices sound more natural, complementing voice-input products.
That's why we're pleased to announce we've acquired Phonetic Arts, a speech synthesis company based in Cambridge, England.Mike Cohen, Manager of Speech Technology, Google
Advisory firms were not disclosed for this transaction.