http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/can-we-talk-better-speech-technology.html

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-demand-is-in-demand-weve-agreed-to.html

http://www.phonetic-arts.com

http://www.widevine.com

Also

http://www.widevine.com/pr/206.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-acquires-text-to-speech-startup-phonetic-arts-2010-12

From the Google blog:
"Phonetic Arts’ team of researchers and engineers work at the cutting edge of speech synthesis, delivering technology that generates natural computer speech from small samples of recorded voice"

I guess that means my computer can be trained to synthesize speech in my own voice, or the voice of a friend, or in the voice of George Bush or Darth Vader. Freaky!