Huawei outs Mate 9 with special edition Porsche Design version

Huawei is refreshing its Mate line of devices with the release of the new Mate 9. The phone, which just launched in Germany, features a massive 5.9-inch Full HD display and runs on Android 7.0 Nougat skinned by EMUI 5.0. It’s powered by a Kirin 960 octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage with microSD expansion, fingerprint reader, dual-band Wi-Fi connectivity, and 4,000mAh battery. Just like the P9 and P9 Plus, the Mate 9 carries dual rear-facing Leica-branded cameras. One is a 20-megapixel monochrome sensor and another is a 12-megapixel RGB sensor with f/2.2 with optical image stabilization. Its front-facing camera has an 8-megapixel sensor. The phablet will be coming to China and Europe first and retails for €699 (or roughly CA$1,030). There is no word yet if it’ll be coming this way but if it does, it makes for a compelling replacement for spurned Samsung Galaxy Note7 users.

A limited edition Porsche Design version, which retails for €1,395 (or around CA$2,070), was also unveiled. This version is smaller with a 5.5-inch 2K AMOLED display, same processor and OS, 256GB internal storage, 6GB of RAM, same camera setup, and battery capacity. Both phones also have USB Type-C port.

Source: Droid Life

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.

LinkedIn’s new tool will let you know if you’re underpaid

A useful new tool coming to LinkedIn will help you find out if you’re being properly compensated. Called LinkedIn Salary, the tool shows you salary trends in a specific field. You can refine the data by industry and years of experience. It even highlights extra compensation such as signing on bonuses and commission. If you want access to more detailed data, you will need to share your salary. LinkedIn promises that these will be kept securely and won’t be shared with recruiters. Now, if you’re a Premium LinkedIn member, you can access said data without sharing your income.

Source: The Next Web

Netflix might be considering offline playback

Stranger Things (Netflix)

Netflix users have been clamoring for offline playback to no avail for years. But it seems the streaming service might reconsider this… except there isn’t any certainty it’s coming here. Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos says the company is considering bringing offline mode to areas where access to high internet speeds isn’t readily available. "We have talked a lot about this over the years and our belief is that broadband and Wi-Fi become more and more ubiquitous, available in more and more places that you are, more and more minutes of the day," Sarandos told CNBC. "Now as we've launched in more territories… They all have different levels of broadband speeds and Wi-Fi access. So in those countries they have adapted their behaviors to be much more of a downloading culture. So in those emerging territories it starts to become a little more interesting. We still think for the developed world our thesis has been true but I think as we get into more and more (of the) undeveloped world and developing countries that we want to find alternatives for people to use Netflix easily."

Sarandos won’t give a specific date when this feature will be available to users. The idea though is to let users download movies to watch offline. But since the company launched in 130 new countries and added 3.2 million new international subscribers, of course, it seems obvious they want these new markets to drive future growth for the company. We’re still holding out hope they reconsider the original markets they launched in.