Voice

All stories in Voice

• Skype finally gets call recording feature

  Only 15 years after it was launched

  • Callum Booth

• How AI could be using our voices against us

  Voice control gadgets – such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Home or Apple’s Homepod – are becoming increasingly popular, but people should pause for thought about advances in machine learning that could lead to applications understanding different emotions in speech. The ...

  • The Conversation

• Need an existential reason for ditching Alexa? Here are a few

  Alexa’s creepy laugh is far from the most worrying thing about her. This is despite the fact that Amazon’s digital assistant – which allows users to access the internet and control personal organization tools simply by speaking to the device – has been reported to spontaneously ...

  • The Conversation

• Voice assistants aren’t built for kids — we need to fix that

  Voice assistants have recently made the leap from your personal smart device into the home via home devices, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home. It’s been estimated that 39 million Americans now own a voice-activated smart home speaker. These assistants are now being integrated ...

  • Patricia Scanlon

• Baidu's voice cloning AI can swap genders and remove accents

  China's tech titan Baidu just upgraded Deep Voice. The voice-cloning AI now works faster than ever and can swap a speaker's ...

  • Tristan Greene

• What will smart speakers be like in 2023?

  The past year has been great for the smart speaker industry. Smart speakers, the voice-activated, home-based devices that allow you to make searches, play music, and even purchase items, skyrocketed in popularity in 2017, with sales more than tripling. Brands like Amazon Echo, Google ...

  • Anna Johansson

• Why brands need to get into ‘voice’ in 2018

  Talking, once seen as the less cool forerunner of text messages and Whatsapp, is having something of a comeback, much like (regrettably) three members of the 90s British boyband, Five. Look at the race to dominate in voice-activated devices which saw the likes of Google, Amazon, ...

  • Liz Duff

• Alexa needs to shut down sexual harassment by shutting down

  Amazon has changed the way Alexa responds to suggestive and abusive language aimed at her, in response to outcries following the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. While her new response is admirable, I think there’s another way she can correct her harassers: by denying ...

  • Rachel Kaser

• How Alexa could save the business meeting

  Get ready to make room for Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or Google at your conference room table. AI is about to head to the office. Already ...

  • J. Scott Christianson

• Alexa will be in future versions of Big Mouth Billy Bass and someone please kill me

  Amazon today announced the unholy union of Alexa and Big Mouth Billy Bass. This means the singing fish toy will soon be squirming ...

  • Rachel Kaser

• Podcast leads to release of Swedish man after 13 years behind bars

  Swedish man released from incarceration after 13 years when witness provides conflicting testimony to podcast

  • Tristan Greene

• These wireless "computers for your ears" are the real future of AR

  The future or AR is not visual, it's sonic, and that's exactly the statement the Here One wireless earbuds made to me when ...

  • Alejandro Tauber