About Siri: Barbra Streisand calls Apple boss Tim Cook
Entertainer Barbra Streisand (81) talks about how she intervened with Apple boss Tim Cook about the incorrect pronunciation of her name. The Apple voice assistant Siri had simply not pronounced her name correctly: "My name is not spelled with a Z," emphasized the 81-year-old. She had previously explained that the S in her surname is pronounced voiceless - i.e. sibilant. A Z in English, on the other hand, is voiced and therefore pronounced softly.
The singer, actress and director wondered how easy it was to pronounce her name in an interview with the British broadcaster BBC. "I thought I'd better call Apple, I mean the head of Apple, Tim Cook," she explained, "and he made sure that Siri corrected the pronunciation of my name."
The multi-award-winning artist, who recounts her rise to global stardom in her new memoir "My Name Is Barbra", added: "That's one perk of fame!"
People around the world will now hear Barbra Streisand's name pronounced correctly by Apple's virtual assistant, Siri. This improvement is a result of Streisand's intervention with Apple CEO Tim Cook. The change was necessary as Siri had been mispronouncing Streisand's surname, which contains a voiceless S, as if it contained a voiced Z.
Source: www.dpa.com
