Take you to your destination, Yoda will

~ Jedi Master is latest official Star Wars voice, only on TomTom ~

Amsterdam, 08 July 2010 – The Force is strong with TomTom drivers – and it’s about to get stronger. As of today, in association with LucasFilm™ and VoiceSkins.com, TomTom customers can be guided by the greatest Jedi Master of them all: Yoda.

Joining Darth Vader and C-3PO, Yoda is the latest official Star Wars voice to launch exclusively for TomTom devices. Han Solo will complete the line-up of fan favourites in August.

“With incredible Jedi powers, Yoda is the ideal voice to guide Star Wars fans on their journeys,” says Alain Pakiry, Senior Vice President for Marketing at TomTom. “Yoda is one of voices most frequently requested by the TomTom community. So we’re thrilled to launch the official Yoda voice, available only on TomTom devices.”

“The TomTom brand is synonymous with high quality navigation. Star Wars fans are sure to be delighted when they hear just how great these voices sound on their TomTom navigation devices,” says Casey Collins, sr. director of international licensing and marketing at Lucas Licensing.

A powerful Jedi warrior Yoda may be. But his quirky diction and mischievous personality also make him one of the most charming characters in the Star Wars universe – and one who adds a whole galaxy of fun to TomTom GPS voice commands. Incorporating dialogue inspired by the original Star Wars films, Yoda’s navigation instructions include “After 700 hundred meters hmm, keep to the right then take a sharp left. Control, control, if a Jedi you wish to be.”

The Yoda voice also comes with ghostly encouragement from Obi-Wan Ben Kenobi taken from the original films and embedded into the navigation commentary. John Williams’ touching ‘Yoda’s Theme’ music is also interwoven with certain commands, providing a richness and cinematic experience rarely heard on navigation systems.

In addition to Yoda’s voice, TomTom has launched a range of official Yoda wallpapers and alert sounds voiced by the Jedi Master. TomTom customers can download these items for free to ensure their TomTom device is enlisted in the service of the Jedi.

All official Star Wars voices for TomTom devices are available in English, while Yoda and Darth Vader are also now available in German. Further languages will be available throughout the summer.

To hear Yoda in action, find out more about official Star Wars voices for TomTom devices, train as a Jedi in TomTom’s Star Wars game, and watch the brand new viral movie featuring Master Yoda visit.

• Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdcJVuylmsM&feature=player_embedded
• Website: http://www.tomtom.com/starwars
• Game: http://www.tomtom.com/usetheforce”

June 10th sees the launch of the official Star Wars C-3PO GPS voice. As with the Darth Vader gps voice launched on May 4th, this satnav voice promises to be just as exciting and innovative in the use of original Star Wars sound effects and music. The C3PO TomTom voice features the navigation talents of R2-D2! On a number of the commands you will hear Threepio ask for R2-D2’s opinion and even berate him when C3PO thinks he may have made a mistake – just like the classic Star Wars films! John Williams’ masterful main title theme tune from the Star Wars classic films is also subtly interwoven into the navigation commentary, making for a very uplifting and rich experience.

This TomTom GPS voice is distinctive, characterful and very entertaining to have in the car. Where Darth Vader is menacing, Homer Simpson goofy and Snoop just plain laidback, C-3PO is the supportive co-pilot you will want to drive around with time and time again, master.  All Star Wars fans should have this TomTom voice in their car; if you’ve already got Darth Vader then C3PO really is the perfect antidote to the Sith Lord.

So, enlist your TomTom ‘navi-computer’ in the Rebel Alliance and make sure you get the inside track;  subscribe to our newsletter and we will let you know the day  - may the moment – threepio is available for download onto your TomTom. And don’t forget, we will also be giving away free TomTom voice content voiced by C-3PO – including warning alerts, start up and shut down sounds as well as very cool wallpaper and a map icon pointer.

Chris.

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU! Darth Vader Voice on TomTom GPS

~ Official Star Wars™ GPS voices now available, only on TomTom devices ~

Amsterdam, 4th May 2010 – Get ready to feel the Force –  behind the wheel! In association with Lucasfilm Ltd. and VoiceSkins.com TomTom brings official Star Wars GPS voices to TomTom navigation devices for the very first time.

Launching today with Sith Lord Darth Vader, the line-up will continue throughout summer 2010 – with C-3PO arriving in June and Yoda in July. The cast will be complete with Han Solo in August.

“We are thrilled to launch these exclusive Star Wars voices, available only on TomTom devices,” said Tom Murray, senior vice president market development at TomTom, Inc. “Now, Star Wars fans around the world can unite their enthusiasm for Star Wars with their driving experience, making every journey more entertaining and enjoyable.”

“The TomTom brand is synonymous with high quality navigation. Star Wars fans are sure to be delighted when they hear just how great these voices sound on their TomTom navigation devices,” says Casey Collins, sr. director of international licensing and marketing at Lucas Licensing..

Darth Vader’s menacing voice and signature breathing add a thrilling dimension to TomTom GPS voice commands. Incorporating dialogue inspired by the original films, Darth Vader delivers navigation instructions such as: “Bear left, to the dark side. Then in 200 yards you have reached your destination. The Force is with you, but you are not a Jedi yet”.

The Darth Vader voice also features original sound effects from the classic films, including lightsaber sounds and TIE fighter flybys. John Williams’ unforgettable Imperial March music is embedded into certain sections of the navigation commentary. With such audio temptation, Darth Vader will turn all TomTom drivers to the dark side!

TomTom customers will also be able to download free of charge various official warning alert sounds voiced by Darth Vader, along with free start up screen wallpaper and Lord Vader map icon.

To celebrate the release of the Darth Vader satnav voice, TomTom is launching a unique Star Wars game where fans can also test their allegiance to the Force, to see if they wish to turn to the dark side..

All Star Wars GPS voices will be available in English with further languages available throughout the summer.

Darth Vader’s satnav voice is available for download immediately for $12.95 / £7.95 / €9.95.

To hear clips of the voices – and to find out more about them and the Star Wars game – visit:

• Website www.tomtom.com/starwars
• Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ljFfL-mL70
• Game: www.tomtom.com/usetheforce

- ENDS -

Note to editors
High resolution Star Wars images are available on request.

About TomTom N.V.

TomTom N.V. (AEX: TOM2) is the world’s leading provider of location and navigation solutions. Headquartered in the Netherlands it employs over 3000 employees worldwide. More than 40 million people daily use its solutions, be it in the form of dedicated portable navigation devices (PNDs), in- dash car systems or tracking and tracing solutions for fleet management. In addition, hundreds of millions of people use TomTom’s digital maps on the internet or mobile phone.

In 2009, TomTom reported €1.5 billion in revenues and a €340 million net cash flow from operating activities. More information about TomTom can be found on www.TomTom.com.

About VoiceSkins.com & Locutio Voice Technologies

Founded in Winchester, United Kingdom in 2004, Locutio Voice Technologies is the world’s foremost developer of real celebrity and branded licensed voice content for in-car GPS. Working with vocal luminaries like Fox / Simpsons and Snoop Dogg, Locutio’s VoiceSkins are scripted, recorded and performed to both enhance the navigation experience and ensure that every journey is a truly fun event. Locutio’s official celebrity GPS VoiceSkins deliver real in-car infotainment!

VoiceSkins.com currently offers for sale the original Homer Simpson voice, as recorded by Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Snoop Dogg and now the Darth Vader Star Wars voice. More high-profile premium branded celebrity voice content is set to be launched throughout 2010. See www.VoiceSkins.com and www.Locutio.co.uk for more details.

Lucasfilm, STAR WARS™ and related properties are trademarks and/or copyrights, in the United States and other countries, of Lucasfilm Ltd. and/or its affiliates. TM & © Lucasfilm Ltd.  All rights reserved.  All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective owners.

The Homer voice and Snoop voice are soon to be joined by a very exciting new GPS voice, due for launch sometime very soon. We are very pleased with this satnav voice as it really pushes the boundaries of what we thought was possible for a celebrity gps voice! If you are not on the mailing list yet, then sign up at VoiceSkins.com and be the first to know when our next GPS voice is launched. It is going to be a very exciting summer if you have a TomTom GPS and want the best celebrity voices to accompany you on your holidays.

The new female TomTom Irish GPS voice: congratulations are due.

A few months ago we recorded Naoimh Touhy, the new female free GPS voice of TomTom Ireland. Naoimh had entered the Today FM radio competition to become the GPS voice of TomTom Ireland and, to her surprise, she came first out of a 1,000 entrants! She received a brand new car and a got to record her GPS voice at a recording session in Dublin, run by our good selves.

The VoiceSkins.com team just wanted to congratulate her on the milestone of over 3,000 TomTom celebrity voice downloads achieved in a very short space of time. Her voice is truly lovely and she was a real pleasure to work with. She seemed to grasp the essentials of voice-over work really quickly, which was very surprising as Naoimh had never set foot in a studio before. Naoimh is a natural talent and will hopefully go on to do other exciting voice-over work. She’s in illustrious company now, sitting along side the Snoop Dogg GPS voice and the original Homer Simpson GPS voices.

Well done Naoimh!

Note: Naoimh’s voice is a standard voice – not a TomTom celebrity voice – and will come preinstalled on all TomTom devices sold in Ireland from April 2010. You can download her free GPS voice here.

Snoop Dogg GPS Voice Recording Session

Snoop turns up a little later than expected (that’s ok – he’s a star!). He had fair reasons: he’d been up all night making a series of videos to support Malice in Wonderland and then onto his son’s football practice during the day. But the moment he arrives, he’s totally ready for work. A real trooper. I have to add, he is incredibly charismatic and very courteous too (damn tall as well). I feel a bit silly shaking his hand. Being the awkward Brit that I am, I probably said something like “ How do you do, Mr. Dogg.’ Ok, I didn’t but you know what I mean: exactly how does an uptight limey address an international rap megastar? Snoop takes it all in his stride, making us feel completely relaxed from the moment he walks in. My brother in law, Sam, is a big, big fan: and having met the man, I can see why he holds such appeal for so many all around the world.

We explain how we want the recording undertaken; Snoop and his manager, Ted, listen intently. Then Snoop goes into the booth and pretty much nails the entire thing in just under 2 hours. This is a record time for us. He seems to know exactly how we want things: 3 variants of everything with all the required pauses and gaps we need for our edit points. Perfect. No guidance needed. At one point we stop to let ProTools catch up but Snoop wants to keep on. The man never lets up.

When he has given us more than enough, including all his great scripted lines, he then starts to improvise (go to www.voiceskins.com and be in with a chance to win the signed script he used at the session!) Anyway, we all spend the next 20 minutes laughing, ‘rapt’ (sorry!) with admiration; he isn’t one of the biggest and best for no reason. The man is really, really funny and despite having been up for 24 hours, he’s brilliant at improvising. Some of it we can’t use and will remain in the archive forever. But watch out for a director’s cut of the Snoop GPS end of next year on www.voiceskins.com– who knows what you might get to hear?

Snoop finishes, puts his fists to mine (so that’s how you shake hands with Snoop!), signs an album for my brother-in-law, has some food and disappears with his manager Ted into another room to do more work. The guy just never stops. Grant and I sit around chatting about the session, the safest place to be in LA when the Big One hits (clue: not in the hills, according to Anthony from Cashmere Agency), whilst we wait for the adrenaline rush to subside.

Snoop GPS voice – Larry King show

Listening to the recording at the airport, I know we have an amazing TomTom GPS voice to share with you. We hope you think so too. Check out the videos ‘The making of the Snoop TomTom GPS celebrity voices’ and the video of Snoop’s VoiceSkin shown in demo mode. You can also see other cool GPS voice videos on our YouTube channel, here.

UPDATE: just heard about Snoop on Larry King talking about his Snoop GPS voice. A very cool little piece with Snoop in his Snoopmobile showing Larry his GPS voice. You can see it here.

And don’t forget to watch Snoop also discussing his involvement with VoiceSkins and his GPS voice on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, here.

Thanks for reading!

Chrizzle H.

LA in October is, well, like UK in high summer and how the Antarctic will be in 50 years (but without the botox). Perfect bleached sidewalks, blue skies and damn hot, in the 80s or so.! I recall how last year, when we were over to record the real Homer GPS voice at Fox sound studios it rained and temperatures hit the low 60s. To LA people, that is cold, whilst we were almost at the point of taking off our t-shirts (isn’t this what all Brits want to do when they go abroad?). We’d just got over the jet lag when Nick, our contact at Stampede, took us out for a power lunch at Café Primo on Sunset Boulevard. Sweaty, semi-beautiful people striding in from the ultra gym next door vying with surly waiting staff; you can’t get more LA than this (unless you consider the bluey white dentures I bought from a man in North Hollywood; only kidding, I’m staying with my true Brit tombstones).

Snoop wrote the additional stuff for the TomTom celebrity voices GPS script himself. He pulled together his Snoopisms and overlaid them perfectly onto our script. Reading it, we knew we had a hit! But we also expected him to improvise a little – after all he’s well known for this.

Grant and I recorded Snoop GPS voice at Conway, where Guns n Roses made ‘Use Your Illusion I & II’, and U2 recorded ‘Rattle and Hum’ (gold discs up on the wall always impress an ex-muso like me). A really lovely place set back in quiet residential street; inside there is a walled garden with loads of trees nestled between the 3 studio complexes. I can see why you’d want to record your difficult second album(s) here. Our ops director, Colin, didn’t make it to the session, sadly. Food poisoning. Raw fish never gives me any problems. Still, there has to be some payback for having lunch earlier in the day in a Malibu café overlooking glorious pacific waves.

Best, Chrizzle…. Continue Reading

So, here you have it: big Snoop Dogg lends his voice to TomTom GPS! We were absolutely thrilled to be approached by Snoop’s management company, Stampede: Snoop had heard all about how we created the real Homer Simpson celebrity voice for TomTom, and wanted to be the first real megastar on GPS. What a coup! We’d just released Homer and were looking at a number of opportunities – all cool but most likely to take a while to put together. One of the things I liked about Snoop and his team is how easy they all were to work with. We had a deal and a recording within 4 months from flash to bang! Now that is quick.

Grant, our creative guy, myself and Colin all listened to a lot of Snoop – interviews, music, musings – everything we could find before setting off to La La land. We immersed ourselves in his speech habits and idiosyncratic way of speaking and rapping. We wanted to find a level for the Snoop Dogg TomTom celebrity voices (for there are three: the US version and the UK and EU versions). What you don’t want is something mechanical and wooden that doesn’t reflect the celebrity’s character and style of vocal delivery. iFizzle, Snoop’s cool iPhone app (effectively a ‘soundboard’ containing well known Snoop phrases, BowWowWow, yippee-yi-yippee-yay and the like) was a good touch point; here was Snoop playfully delivering well loved Snoopisms in that wonderful warm drawl. This was it – we had it. We waited for the day we’d fly to LA to meet Snoop and record his voice…read about the journey to LA and the recording session in parts 2 & 3 shortly.

Best, Chrizzle.