Posts Tagged: voice
WhatsApp For Android Is Going To Get Voice Note Transcripts Soon
Tired of having to listen through super-long voice notes on WhatsApp? Well, the recent beta shows that voice note transcripts will be coming soon.
TalkAndroid
ElevenLabs reportedly banned the account that deepfaked Biden’s voice with its AI tools
ElevenLabs, an AI startup that offers voice cloning services with its tools, has banned the user that created an audio deepfake of Joe Biden used in an attempt to disrupt the elections, according to Bloomberg. The audio impersonating the president was used in a robocall that went out to some voters in New Hampshire last week, telling them not to vote in their state’s primary. It initially wasn’t clear what technology was used to copy Biden’s voice, but a thorough analysis by security company Pindrop showed that the perpetrators used ElevanLabs’ tools.
The security firm removed the background noise and cleaned the robocall’s audio before comparing it to samples from more than 120 voice synthesis technologies used to generate deepfakes. Pindrop CEO Vijay Balasubramaniyan told Wired that it “came back well north of 99 percent that it was ElevenLabs.” Bloomberg says the company was notified of Pindrop’s findings and is still investigating, but it has already identified and suspended the account that made the fake audio. ElevenLabs told the news organization that it can’t comment on the issue itself, but that it’s “dedicated to preventing the misuse of audio AI tools and [that it takes] any incidents of misuse extremely seriously.”
The deepfaked Biden robocall shows how technologies that can mimic somebody else’s likeness and voice could be used to manipulate votes this upcoming presidential election in the US. “This is kind of just the tip of the iceberg in what could be done with respect to voter suppression or attacks on election workers,” Kathleen Carley, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, told The Hill. “It was almost a harbinger of what all kinds of things we should be expecting over the next few months.”
It only took the internet a few days after ElevenLabs launched the beta version of its platform to start using it to create audio clips that sound like celebrities reading or saying something questionable. The startup allows customers to use its technology to clone voices for “artistic and political speech contributing to public debates.” Its safety page does warn users that they “cannot clone a voice for abusive purposes such as fraud, discrimination, hate speech or for any form of online abuse without infringing the law.” But clearly, it needs to put more safeguards in place to prevent bad actors from using its tools to influence voters and manipulate elections around the world.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elevenlabs-reportedly-banned-the-account-that-deepfaked-bidens-voice-with-its-ai-tools-083355975.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics
This amazing iOS 17 feature clones your voice. Here’s how it works
With iOS 17 on your iPhone, a feature called Personal Voice allows you to clone your voice in just 15 minutes thanks to AI. Here’s how it works.
Digital Trends
[Deal] Amazon’s Fire TV 32-inch HD Smart TV with Alexa Voice Remote is down to just $130
Choosing a new television can be an expensive undertaking but Amazon’s range of smart TVs offer a cheap way to upgrade with Fire TV features baked in. And, if you aren’t fussed about 4K resolution or a huge panel, the 2-Series HD Smart TV with Fire TV and Alexa Voice Remote included has been reduced […]
Come comment on this article: [Deal] Amazon’s Fire TV 32-inch HD Smart TV with Alexa Voice Remote is down to just $ 130
The Morning After: Microsoft’s VALL-E AI can replicate a voice from a three-second sample
Microsoft’s latest research in text-to-speech AI centers on a new AI model, VALL-E. While there are already multiple services that can create copies of your voice, they usually demand substantial input. Microsoft claims its model can simulate someone’s voice from just a three-second audio sample. The speech can match both the timbre and emotional tone of the speaker – even the acoustics of a room. It could one day be used for customized or high-end text-to-speech applications, but like deepfakes, there are risks of misuse.
Researchers trained VALL-E on 60,000 hours of English language speech from 7,000-plus speakers in Meta’s Libri-Light audio library. The results aren’t perfect: Some are tinny machine-like samples, while others are surprisingly realistic.
Microsoft isn’t making the code open source, possibly due to the inherent risks. In the paper, the company said: “Since VALL-E could synthesize speech that maintains speaker identity, it may carry potential risks in misuse of the model, such as spoofing voice identification or impersonating.”
We’ve all seen the 1992 movie Sneakers, right? Right?!
– Mat Smith
The biggest stories you might have missed
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Samsung’s first Unpacked event of 2023 takes place February 1st
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Hyundai managed to put its ‘crab-walking’ e-Corner technology into an Ioniq EV
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What an ‘oddball’ star in the Cygnus cluster can teach us about how masers are made
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DJI’s lightweight RS 3 Mini camera stabilizer is designed to be used with one hand
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‘TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge’ hits iOS and Android as a Netflix mobile exclusive
Amazon expands Prime shipping to more shopping sites
But you’ll need a Prime subscription.
Amazon is expanding Prime to cover more of the web. The company says it’s making Buy with Prime “widely available” to eligible third-party sites in the US on January 31st. More shops can offer free shipping, streamlined checkout and simplified returns to Prime members. The theoretical advantages are clear: You get products with less hassle, while stores are more likely to turn visitors into paying customers. Amazon, meanwhile, is hoping to boost interest in Prime subscriptions. The catch, of course, is you have to pay for that pesky Prime sub.
NASA funds ideas and prototypes for future space exploration
Including a Titan seaplane and faster deep space travel.
NASA is handing out $ 175,000 initial study grants to 14 new projects potentially useful for missions in and beyond the solar system. TitanAir might be the most unusual one: a seaplane from Planet Enterprises’ Quinn Morley that could fly through the nitrogen-and-methane atmosphere of Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan, and sail its oceans.
MIT’s Mary Knapp has proposed a deep space observatory that would use a swarm of thousands of tiny satellites to detect low-frequency radio emissions from the early universe, and UCLA’s Artur Davoyan’s idea could speed up exploration at the outer edges of space. His design would propel spacecraft with a “pellet-beam” of microscopic particles traveling at very high speed (over 74 miles per second) using laser blasts.
The first-ever UK space flight fails to reach orbit
Virgin Orbit said the rocket suffered an anomaly that prevented it from reaching its destination.
Meanwhile, the UK’s first efforts at space flight have ended in failure. Virgin Orbit’s historic Start Me Up mission launched from Spaceport Cornwall on January 9th as planned, but it failed to reach orbit. Apparently, the company tweeted, because of “an anomaly.” The mission carried payload satellites from seven commercial and government customers. They include a joint UK–US project called CIRCE (Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment) and two CubeSats for the UK’s Ministry of Defense. As noted by Ars Technica, this failure could have a huge impact on the company, which is struggling to launch enough missions to break even.
Apple may use in-house wireless chips in iPhones by 2025
Broadcom and Qualcomm may get the boot very soon.
Bloomberg sources claim Apple is not only prepping its first cellular modem (now slated for late 2024 or early 2025) but also a combination of Bluetooth and WiFi chips to replace the Broadcom chip currently handling those duties in iPhones. While the exact reasoning for the transition wasn’t mentioned, it’s no secret Apple started designing its own silicon across multiple products.
This AI cloned my voice using just three minutes of audio
My Own Voice certainly isn’t the only voice-cloning tool out there, but what’s impressive about it is that it only needs a tiny amount of input.
Digital Trends
Google Voice now flags suspected spam calls
Google Voice has made it easier to filter out spammers trying to call your number. The tech giant has announced that the service will now flag suspected spam calls and will clearly label them as such, complete with a big red exclamation mark. Spam calls and texts have been a huge issue for a years, and they aren't going away anytime soon — according to the FCC, consumers in the US receive approximately 4 billion robocalls per month and that Americans had lost nearly $ 30 billion to scam calls in 2021. Google says the feature was designed to help protect you "from unwanted calls and potentially harmful scams."
The new label that says "suspected spam caller" will show up not just on the incoming call screen, but also in call history for future reference. If you confirm that the call is spam, any future call from that number will head straight to voicemail, and all its call history entries will be sent to the spam folder. But if you confirm that the number is legitimate and isn't a spam caller, the warning will never be displayed for it again. Here's what the label would look like on the call screen:
Google uses the same artificial intelligence that's in charge of identifying spam calls across its ecosystem to pinpoint spam callers for this feature. Apparently, that AI has been filtering out billions of spam calls a month for the tech giant. To note, the new label will only appear if your spam filter setting under Security is turned off. If it's on, all calls Google suspects to be spam are sent to voicemail from the start.
Twitter appears to be blocking Google Voice numbers from SMS authentication
Twitter appears to have cut off Google Voice numbers from two-factor authentication (2FA). Although it's hardly the first company to block virtual phone numbers from SMS authentication, the change could be connected to CEO Elon Musk’s aggressive moves to snuff out bot accounts from the platform.
The new behavior, reported by 9to5Google, appears to block users from using a Google Voice number to authenticate their accounts. (I tried it today, and it rejected my Google Voice number.) Further, users previously authenticated with Google Voice could find themselves locked out of their accounts. Engadget reached out to Google to confirm, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. Twitter no longer has a PR department.
Since buying Twitter and taking over as CEO (a title he now says he’ll abandon once he finds a successor), Musk has been vocal about vanquishing bots from the platform. Earlier this month, Platformerreported the company blocked traffic from 30 mobile carriers worldwide — including networks in Russia, Indonesia, India and Malaysia. The move cut off access for thousands of accounts, including legitimate ones using those wireless carriers for 2FA. Musk accused the carriers of initiating the bogus texts to inflate what Twitter owed them contractually for SMS.
That report didn’t mention Google Voice, but anyone with a Gmail account can set up a free Google Voice number, making it an easy authentication tool for bots, scammers and spammers. Although it’s tempting to lump this move together with Musk’s seemingly erratic overhauls since taking over, it’s standard practice for apps ranging from financial institutions to dating apps to bar virtual numbers from 2FA.
If you set up your Twitter account with Google Voice authentication, you should be able to change the number without contacting support. You can go to Twitter Settings > Security and Account Access > Security > Two-Factor Authentication to remove that number and add your primary carrier line.
Sonos will launch its own voice assistant on June 1st for no good reason other than it can
Admit it, you’ve dreamed that instead of being locked down to using Siri, Bixby, Alexa, and the Google Assistant that there could be another option limited to being used on Sonos products running its S2 software. You haven’t? Well, Sonos is launching its own voice assistant anyway as an alternative to other services, with compatible […]
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Garmin’s new D2 Air X10 adds voice controls for $550
In an upgrade to its critically well-received Garmin D2 Air, the new D2 Air X10 lets pilots control Siri or the Google Assistant from their wrists.
Wearables | Digital Trends
WhatsApp is working on a new interface for voice calls
WhatsApp is working on several developments at the end of the year, including changes to the interface for placing voice calls.
Mobile | Digital Trends
How to set up Google Voice on your smartphone or computer
Google Voice lets you call anyone via the internet while maintaining your privacy. Use this handy guide to set up Google Voice on a phone or computer.
Android | Digital Trends
Google Assistant Snapshot can now be summoned with a voice command
You can now summon Google Assistant’s Snapshot by saying “Hey Google, show me my day.” The tech giant introduced the feature as a way to view your tasks for the day in one place back in 2018, and up until recently, you can only access it by tapping o…
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Samsung’s old S Voice assistant will shut down in June
Back in 2012, Samsung introduced its S Voice assistant as it sought to keep up after Apple went all-in on Siri. It was a notable addition for the Galaxy S III, along with the phone’s massive 4.8-inch display, powerful quad-core CPU and TouchWiz inter…
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Can anyone match Freddie Mercury’s legendary voice? Queen and YouTube Music are challenging fans to find out!
“Bohemian Rhapsody” is considered one of the greatest rock songs of all time, so it’s no wonder the music video recently hit 1 billion views on YouTube. For decades, fans have belted out the song’s iconic lyrics alongside Freddie Mercury’s one-of-a-kind vocals, but how many can really sing it just like Freddie? YouTube, Google Creative Lab, and Google Research — working in partnership with Queen, Universal Music Group and Hollywood Records — have built a new AI experiment called FreddieMeter to find out!
Released in support of Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity founded by Brian May, Roger Taylor and Jim Beach to raise awareness and funds for the fight against HIV/AIDS, and in honor of the 44th anniversary of the band’s first-ever live performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” at the Empire Theater, Liverpool, U.K in November 1975; FreddieMeter was created to let fans around the world determine how closely their singing matches the voice of Queen’s legendary frontman, Freddie Mercury.
FreddieMeter shows users how closely their voice matches Freddie Mercury’s legendary range by analyzing the singer’s pitch, timbre, and melody to assign them a score of 0 to 100. Queen fans, killer impressionists, and anyone who enjoys a little karaoke and are ready to step up to the challenge can get started by doing the following:
- SING: Pick one of four QUEEN songs on the microsite (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Somebody to Love” or “We Are the Champions”) and sing your heart out!
- SHARE: Get your score and share! Download the custom scorecard asset directly to your device, then share it on YouTube Stories, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
- CHALLENGE: Using the hashtag #FreddieChallenge on social channels, challenge three friends to see how they measure up.
- DONATE: Encourage a charitable donation to Mercury Phoenix Trust in your post → http://www.mercuryphoenixtrust.com/donate
Google Creative Lab and Google Research created FreddieMeter using new on-device machine learning models, and it’s been trained on Freddie’s isolated vocals, as well as samples of people trying to sing like Freddie. FreddieMeter is trained on and optimized for individual singers and works on desktop, Android and iPhone devices, and the audio doesn’t get uploaded to any servers to be analyzed, so all vocals stay totally private unless shared by the user.
FreddieMeter continues YouTube’s celebration of Queen’s music and “Bohemian Rhapsody’s” 1 billion views milestone, which coincided with the release of a newly remastered HD version of the video. The achievement made history with the anthem being the first pre-1990s video to reach one billion views on the platform.
In partnership with Universal Music Group and Hollywood Records, YouTube also recently launched ‘You Are The Champions,’ a unique campaign that gave fans an exclusive chance to become a part of Queen history with a starring role in brand-new, user-generated videos for three of the band’s most celebrated tracks: “A Kind of Magic,” “Don’t Stop Me Now” and the iconic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The results were pulled from more than 10,000 submissions from more than 120 countries around the world, showing the depth and love for Queen and Freddie amongst their loyal global fanbase.
To take on the #FreddieChallenge now or find out more about FreddieMeter, visit freddiemeter.withyoutube.com.
Someone, somewhere is getting paid to listen to your voice interactions with your smart speaker
In a bit of news that should surprise absolutely no one, there’s a chance that some of your voice interactions with your smart speaker will be reviewed by a human at some company. Whether you’re rocking an Echo Dot, Google Home Max, or some other third-party device with one of the aforementioned assistants built in, […]
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Android Auto now works with Google Voice (sort of)
Android Auto is designed to minimize your distractions while driving, and it blocks a good chunk of notifications from your phone, excluding notifications from whitelisted apps. That whitelist is a pretty short list, and usually just covers things like SMS messages, navigation alerts, and other similar notifications relevant to driving. Google Voice was not included […]
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GBoard receiving offline voice typing on Pixels
Google‘s latest update to their ‘GBoard‘ digital keyboard has enabled on-device processing of speech-to-text writing, but only on their own Pixel devices. Google initially released its updated and rebranded ‘GBoard’ digital keyboard for iOS in May 2016, and curiously for the company’s own Android OS seven months later in December 2016. GBoard was Google’s answer […]
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NVIDIA Shield TV update 7.1 brings voice chat, mouse and keyboard support, and a companion app
NVIDIA has announced their 20th software update to the Shield TV, and it’s a pretty big incremental update hot on the heels of the latest 7.0 update.There’s plenty to talk about here, including a bunch of features to make the Shield TV a better primary gaming console, plus a few quality of life changes for […]
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YouTube TV finally getting voice remote feature
Google has been updating a lot of their apps and services recently, but one that has not received much attention is YouTube TV. However, users of the service may notice a new pop-up message the next time they launch the app on their smartphone letting them know that a new “voice remote” feature is available. […]
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Sprint and Google Voice will go their separate ways this June
Way back in Android’s lifespan (seriously, 2011 kind of wayback) Sprint and Google teamed up to integrate the carrier’s service with Google Voice services. It was a pretty nifty partnership and really the only one of its kind, but up until now, it’s worked without a hitch. Sprint users could take advantage of all the […]
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[TA Deals] Learn to build apps with the Voice, Chat, and Vision Bundle
Apps are transitioning beyond just using touch-based interfaces, especially with the rise of smart assistants and smart speakers. If you’re interested in starting to build apps and services that take advantage of these new trends, you’ll want to grab our Voice, Chat, and Vision bundle. As the name implies, this bundle includes tons of content […]
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Amazon Fire TV owners can now use voice commands to control Hulu and other third-party apps
Amazon has just announced that you can now use voice commands to control third-party apps on its Fire TV and Fire Stick devices. Previously, you could only use voice commands on Amazon Video but now you can use Alexa to control the Hulu app and more. It isn’t just Hulu that you can control with […]
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Source claims Bixby Voice U.S. launch next week
The delays related to Samsung’s release of the voice-activated portion of the their digital assistant platform, Bixby, are well known and seem to continue with no end in sight. Until now that is if a tipster on Reddit is to be believed. According to this source, the official release date is set as next Tuesday, […]
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Use Alexa to control Sony 4K TVs with your voice
Another day, another Alexa skill, right? Well the latest set is pretty useful if you feel like talking to your TV actually responding when you yell at it. With Sony's 2017 4K models with HDR and Android TV you can turn them on and off, adjust volume,…
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Control your Roomba with just your voice via this new Alexa integration
Everyone’s favorite self-driving vacuum cleaner, the Roomba, just added an Amazon Alexa integration, allowing you to communicate with your cleaning assistant with nothing more than your voice.
The post Control your Roomba with just your voice via this new Alexa integration appeared first on Digital Trends.
Deep-learning algorithm can mimic any voice based on just 60 seconds of speech
Do you remember the cool Mission Impossible tech that lets Tom Cruise’s character mimic the voice of any other character? Well, a Montreal-based startup called Lyrebird just invented it for real.
The post Deep-learning algorithm can mimic any voice based on just 60 seconds of speech appeared first on Digital Trends.
Google Voice to get VOIP support, Hangouts getting encryption
Just this week Google took the unusual step of rolling out some updates to the oft-forgotten Google Voice app. Voice has been lurking in the proverbial shadows of Google’s portfolio of communication tools, so seeing improvements roll out was unexpected. The bulk of the changes that hit this week were interface updates. New reports indicate […]
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Sonos wants to integrate voice assistants into its speaker lineup
Sonos was previously the king of a pretty uncontested market. They made premium WiFi speaker systems that were a little more efficient than Bluetooth speakers, and they made their equipment compatible with as many things as possible. So far that’s been a pretty successful strategy, but with the rise of other “smart” speakers like Alexa, […]
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Facebook is testing group voice calls on desktop
It looks like Facebook is considering the possibility of making group voice calling available on desktop. According to TechCrunch, the social network has given a small number of users access to the feature to test it out — if you want to know if you…
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Alexa gives voice control to Logitech’s Harmony Hub remote
Alexa now (officially) works with Logitech's Harmony Hub, meaning it's a lot easier to get voice control over your home entertainment and automation devices. After you enable the Alexa skill on an Amazon Echo, Dot or other supported device, you'll be…
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Voice Bridge now lets you make calls with your landline from any Wi-Fi network
Invoxia’s Voice Bridge will soon be receiving an update that lets users make calls with their landline number on any Wi-Fi network. Previously it was restricted to making calls on your home Wi-Fi.
The post Voice Bridge now lets you make calls with your landline from any Wi-Fi network appeared first on Digital Trends.
Pebble’s clip-on Core will tap into Amazon Alexa for voice assistance smarts
Pebble’s new clip-on Core wearable is gaining a new feature ahead of its 2017 launch: voice-assistance chops courtesy of Amazon’s Alexa. It’ll be able to use many of the same skills and features as Amazon’s Echo hardware.
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