Speak will make your computer even more helpful and entertaining than ever. Speak will use Microsoft Agent Animated Characters to read your text for you. You can tell Merlin (as a character example) to read your documents, emails, web pages or any text in the clipboard. Just keep the cool animated character on top of your desktop and click on him whenever you want him to read for you. Control the speed and pitch and enjoy many characters with different expressions and animations. In addition, Speak features Voice Recognition Technology, enabling your computer to accept spoken commands. Voice Recognition can be used to launch applications, web sites, play some music, shut down, restart your computer or just reply back. Speak will also remind you of your appointments with Speak Reminders. The character will also try to entertain you by telling you jokes, sing or just yawn and sleep. You can also play wav files and change voices and/or languages with the download of extra speech engines.