Stephen Hawking is to replace his American accent with an English one thanks to an Indian software developer.
Prof Hawking dislikes the American accent of his electronic voice that's transmitted from the computerised machine fixed to his wheelchair.
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He visited India recently and agreed to a suggestion to upgrade the software. He will decide on his new accent this summer.
Mr Vickram Crishna, a consultant specialist in audio communication and software develpment in Bombay, is developing a new program for Prof Hawking.
It may add emotions and have a wider and faster vocabulary.
They discussed the project for four hours.
Mr Crishna said: "We joked about the American accent. He doesn't like it, but he is stuck with it. I have some nice English accents on my Macintosh.
"The point is that instead of me choosing, he can take a range of options and fine-tune them, maybe to take something close to the way he spoke as a young man and update it for a man in his fifites."
Prof Hawking, who holds the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, suffers from motor neurone disease.
He lost his voice in 1985 after a tracheotomy. He was suffering from pneumonia.
PA