Thursday
Nov032016

Adobe makes it easier to edit speech with Project VoCo

Adobe’s new experimental project might change the way we look at, or rather listen to, speeches. Introduced at its annual MAX conference in San Diego, Project VoCo allows you to edit speech like you would a word document. And it isn’t just about editing existing recordings, you can even use the same voice model to create completely new recordings. Project VoCo just needs around 20 minutes of voice samples from a particular speaker. It’ll then analyze and break down this speech into phonemes, transcribe this, and create the voice model. According to TechCrunch, if you listen closely now, you’ll be able to hear when a word is changed but we won’t be surprised if there comes a time when you won’t be able to distinguish the actual recording from the edited/fake one.

Adobe didn’t use traditional speech synthesis technology with this but used what they call “voice conversion.” And it requires hardly any manual intervention. You can edit the auto-generated transcript but there is no need to set timestamps. The algorithms will figure this out themselves. While this could raise a lot of questions, especially since it’ll become harder to trust recordings now. It’s still a pretty cool technological advancement. Adobe won’t commit to shipping this technology but who knows if this’ll show up in any of their products? They’ve done a lot of that in the past.

Thursday
Nov032016

Watch: The latest Wonder Woman trailer shows why it might be the best DC movie yet

Let's face it, the DC cinemantic universe hasn't really lived up to all the hype but now, Wonder Woman, whos is the character that many agree saved Batman V. Superman : Dawn of Justice, is getting her own epic movie and thes second trailer above shows that it isn't all superhero action, which is a good thing. We see world war I, the Amazons as well as Chris Pine's Steve Trevor in what seems to be a smart and exciting period adventure. Wonder Woman comes to theatres in June 2017.
Thursday
Nov032016

Bell Fibe TV service now available on Apple TV

Apple TV has been a bit of a miss for Canadian viewers because it doesn't feature all the cool services that are available to US users. This is changing a bit today as Bell Fibe TV is now available on Apple TV, enabling consumers to experience television service alongside their music, photos, games and favourite apps on Apple TV 4th Generation.

"Fibe TV continues to be the fastest growing TV service in Canada because of our constant focus on delivering new and exclusive features and building great partnerships to make television better," said Rizwan Jamal, President of Bell Residential and Small Business. "Consumers can access Fibe TV through a receiver, on their computer or mobile device, and now, for the first time in Canada, on Apple TV."

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Nov032016

Google's Pixel XL adoption is faster than Nexus 6P

Google's new Pixel XL smartphone's adoption has outpaced last year's Nexus 6P flagship. This is likely due to the fact that Google has really put some marketing muscle behind its new phones plus the Pixel and the Pixel XL have been extremely well reviewed by the technology press as the best Android devices in the market right now.

Still in short supply, the Pixel XL took a week to reach a market share comparable to the Nexus 6P two weeks after launch. 

The smaller Pixel is showing some amazing growth too. A week after launch day, its numbers were 274% up. Similarly, the Pixel XL more than doubled its launch day numbers after a week of sales (up 158%).

Source: 9to5Google