Artificial intelligence has been developing in massive leaps and bounds in the recent years. This is probably most evident to customers in products like Google Assistant but there's a lot of influential work being done behind the scenes that advance the capabilities.
One of the companies working on improvements in AI is IBM. They are developing the algorithms and models that recognize speech patterns and styles. Their text-to-speech (TTS) modeling has advanced so much that it can create a nearly indiscernible and infinitely adaptable human voice from just 5 minutes of talking.
The speech synthesizer can improve itself even after this, and after 10 or especially 20 minutes of "listening" to sample speech it can reproduce the voice in whatever text very naturally.
IBM says that the trick to the impressive performance is the modular architecture of the neural speech synthesis. This means that the system detects and trains each aspect of the voice independently.
This makes the result retain the original character of the voice.
But you don't have to believe us, here you can listen to the samples (5 min, 10 min, 20 min) for different voices. You can also make them speak text of your choice here.
Microsoft is preparing a Surface event for tomorrow, and they've gotten away without leaking their devices all the way til today.
Unfortunately for the company, and perhaps luckily for us, The Verge in association with the famed leaker Evan Blass have released some photos of the upcoming devices ahead of the launch event.
The pictured devices include the likes of Surface Pro 7, Surface Laptop in two sizes (13" and 15") as well as a yet unnamed new ARM based 2-in-1 device.
The pictures don't really reveal anything out of ordinary. For example, there is no Surface device with two displays present. Nor is there any folding displays.
Also, there are no specs revealed but we do get to see some of the features of the devices in the pictures. The new 2-in-1 device has at least two USB-C ports, camera in the back, and a vertical kickstand. It also supports stylus input.
The Surface Laptop's design seems fairly conservative, and perhaps reminds a little bit like a touch screen version of MacBook Air.
We can also confirm that Surface Pro 7 will still have the same USB-A and USB-C ports on the right side and same docking ports and pins.
It has been just few months since Stranger Things' season 3 ended, but now Netflix has already released the first official teaser trailer of the upcoming Stranger Things 4 in its social media accounts.
Very short teaser wont reveal much, but according to the post, "we're not in Hawkins anymore".
WhatsApp is the most popular messaging platform with over a billion users around the world. While most of these users have a fairly up-to-date Android phone or iPhone, many are using the service with older devices.
In fact, one of the many reasons WhatsApp became so immensely popular was because it supported all kinds of devices from the popular to the niche. Every now and then, however, some of the older devices will no longer be supported by the messaging app.
This will again happen at the start of February, 2020. The support will end this time for Android 2.3.7, more commonly known as Android Gingerbread, as well as iOS 8.
Fortunately this means that it only affects around 0.3% of Android and iOS users alike.
Also, this doesn't mean that you won't be able to use the app at all, but official support, including updates, are no longer going to be appearing on those devices.
In addition, ou will no longer be able to activate a new account with aforementioned devices.
One subsection of smartphones that won't have a working WhatsApp is Windows Phone. The service will no longer be available on Windows Phone starting December 31, 2019.
Apple's newest iPhones are barely out but, to be honest, they were a little bit of a let down, right? So, no wonder that the first iPhone 12 rumors are already circulating.
Rumors suggest, and as tradition would dictate, that Apple is revamping the iPhone design for next year. Famed Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is also of the mind that next year will be a big upgrade, something we haven't seen in three years.
Everything isn't going to be new, though. In fact, Kuo suggests that Apple is planning a return to an old design language which would provide better radio reception.
In addition, a new leak suggests that whatever the industrial design is, it is going get rid of the notch. Leaker Ben Geskin has revealed what he calls a 2020 iPhone prototype.
While the new design would have no notch it would still have the Face ID functionality. This means that Apple would have to cram all the sensors in the top bezel of the phone.
One could expect that the bezel is going to be at least slightly larger than in iPhone 11 and its predecessors. Also, to make it look symmetrical, Apple would have to enlarge at least the lower bezel, likely all sides, too.
This would make it fairly sizable as the 6.7 inch display in itself is larger than display on the iPhone 11 Pro Max.
A new exploit has been found on iPhones dating from 2017 with iPhone X and iPhone 8 all the way back to iPhone 4S from 2011.
The security hole is said to be unpatchable by the community. The exploit, aptly named checkm8 by the hacker axi0mX, could allow jailbreaking of hundreds of millions of iPhones consistently and without a possibility of a patch to close it.
Jailbreaking was a popular community effort to unlock the iPhones, especially in the early days of smartphones. Nowadays jailbreaking has become harder as Apple's continuous patches break the exploits.
This one is said to be unpatchable due to the fact that the affected part of the system is the boot ROM which means that it is a read-only memory and thus can't be patched with a simple software update.
Unfortunately for the jailbreak community the exploit does not cover the most recent phones, including last year's iPhone XS and this year's iPhone 11 models. However, this might make iPhone X and earlier iPhone models more attractive choice for users that appreciate homebrew and tinkering with their technology.
Finding the exploit is only the first step. Now the community has to figure out how to create a jailbreak to unlock each affected iPhone model. Even though this exploit could potentially allow a jailbreak, it is not necessarily possible.
Apple first unveiled their streaming video platform early this years, and just a few weeks ago the company announced the pricing and availability alongside the introduction of new iPhones.
Well, so far the catalog of content for Apple TV+ hasn't been expanded too much, so the concern is certainly warranted. However, Apple has a different kind of strategy for the movies it produces.
According to sources close to the matter, Apple is going to first release the movies to theaters and only after a few weeks of screening would they come available on your Apple TV+ subscription, WSJ reports.
The information suggests that Apple is trying to elevate the brand, not so much raise money, and this requires theater screenings, which many of the influential and highly regarded creators and producers Apple wants to recruit want.
The latest security breach is affecting iOS and Android app DoorDash users, a blog post by the company reveals. According to the post, nearly 5 million users or partners have been affected by the data leak.
DoorDash servers were attacked and the attackers managed to get ahold of personal information of around 4.9 million accounts. This includes both customers and merchants, as well as Dashers, the delivery personnel of the food delivery service.
The unauthorized access was recorded on May 4, 2019 and the company received the information earlier in September.
The customer infomation accessed includes names, email addresses, delivery addresses, order history, phone numbers and encypted passwords. According to the post, no full credit card information was stolen, although some last four digits might have been accessed.
Dashers had also their driver's license numbers accessed.
DoorDash said that it will contact all affected users directly, and let them know what information of theirs was accessed. They've suggested everyone change their passwords nonetheless. The company has put in efforts to ensure better security practices in the future.
Google has tried to capture the music market with different iterations of streaming services for quite a while without much success. Previously Google Play Music was their bid for music supremacy, now it's time to move toward YouTube Music.
This summer YouTube Music managed to pass 15 million subscribers. It's not nothing but it's a far cry compared to 60 million from Apple Music or well past 100 million paid subscribers from Spotify.
The search giant has decided now to promote YouTube Music more aggressively in replacing Google Play Music. The company has announced that YouTube Music will now be pre-installed to all new Android devices, be it equipped with Android 9 or Android 10.
This also means that if you prefer still using Google Play Music, although they are clearly trying to kill it, you will have to install it yourself.
Tesla has yesterday announced the largest software update to its vehicles in some time. In fact, the version 10.0 update is the largest ever, and introduces new features to the Tesla displays and more.
One of the more anticipated features not linked necessarily to the displays is Smart Summon. The software update brings autonomous parking lot driving to all Teslas that have Full Self-Driving Capability or Enhanced Autopilot.
New additions in the smart displays on the other hand include car Karaoke feature Caraoke, addition of Spotify Premium, I'm Feeling Lucky and I'm Feeling Hungry nagivation/adventure features, Cuphead action game in Tesla Arcade, and Tesla Theater with Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu support.
Furthermore Tesla improved the Dashcam and Sentry Mode USB support and brought browser support to Model 3.
The company said that Tesla owners worldwide would start now waking up to the new update, so while the update has rolled out it might take a few days for you to get it, perhaps depending on the market.
Is it worth ditching your OnePlus 7 or OnePlus 7 Pro for a new OnePlus 7T, unveiled today? Let's take a quick peak at the notable differences.
OnePlus unveiled the OnePlus 7T in India today, an upgrade over the OnePlus 7 released in May. A more powerful OnePlus 7T Pro is very likely to be unveiled on October 10 in an event in London, which would be an update to the OnePlus 7 Pro. While details on pricing are still unavailable, we can still look at the key differences over the previously released handsets.
A quick glimpse tells you that some of the changes in the OnePlus 7T are more like the OnePlus 7 Pro, so in essence we expect it is an upgrade that makes it more approximate to the previous Pro model, but with a price closer to the previous basic model. It is ever so slightly heavier, coming in at 190g compared to 182g for its predecessor. The design is pretty much the same as the OnePlus 7 and the 6 and 6T before it, so there isn't much to be said there. OnePlus 7T also comes with an Oxygen OS based on Android 10, but the OnePlus 7 can update to the newer OS.
Under the hood, it trades in the Snapdragon 855 for an 855+ SoC. Unlike before, there is no 6GB of RAM option, the OnePlus 7T comes with 8GB RAM, no more no less. For the display, OnePlus 7T is slightly larger than the OnePlus 7 display at 6.55-inch, compared to 6.41-inch. Size isn't everything though and unlike the OnePlus 7, the 7T screen supports a 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10+. This was also the case with the OnePlus 7 Pro, though the higher resolution of the Pro and curved screen are not present in the 7T.
OnePlus has unveiled the latest series in its popular smartphone lineup with the OnePlus 7T.
Chinese smartphone firm OnePlus has refreshed its smartphone line up with launch of the OnePlus 7T in India today, an upgrade on the OnePlus 7 series unveiled back in May of this year. A more expensive OnePlus 7T Pro is likely to be unveiled in October.
Sporting a design very similar to the OnePlus 7 series (and 6), the specs were also mostly anticipated in previously reported leaks. OnePlus 7T features a 6.55-inch AMOLED display (2400x1080 at 20:9, 402ppi, 90Hz refresh rate) with an in-display fingerprint sensor. It is driven by a Qualcomm 855+ SoC (up to 2.96GHz) and Adreno 640 GPU. Under the hood is 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB internal storage (UFS 3.0 2-lane). For juice, it packs a 3800mAh non-removable battery supporting Warp Charge through its speedy 30T Fast Charging (5V/6A/30W) charger.
At the rear, OnePlus 7T features a Sony IMX586 48 megapixel main lens, complemented with an additional 12 megapixel telephoto lens and 16 megapixel ultra wide angle lens. The tri-lens system allows for optical zooming (2x), and can record video up to 4K resolution at 30/60fps. Super Slow Motion footage can be captured at 1080p (240fps) or 720p (480fps, 960fps).
Microsoft has revealed that its Windows 10 operating system is now on more than 900 million devices worldwide.
Redmond is closing in on its target of a billion devices running Windows 10 very quickly. The operating system launched for consumers in 2015 and has since been installed on more than 900 million PCs, Xbox One consoles, Surface devices, and Microsoft's HoloLens.
The new figure of 900 million devices is up from a milestone reached just six months ago of 800 million. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate VP of the Search and Devices Group at Microsoft, said that in the past twelves months they have added more Windows devices than ever before.
The momentum has a lot to do with the forthcoming end of support for Windows 7. The aging operating system is among Microsoft's most successful software products. Just like Windows XP before it - which was released in 2001 and came to the end of support five years ago - Microsoft is trying to lure users to the newer operating system with warnings delivered by Windows Update.
While many users will undoubtedly hold out for some time, the end of Windows 7 seems to be having an effect on the momentum of Windows 10 at the moment. At this rate, Windows 10 should reach a billion devices sometime in early 2020.
Spotify has become truly a force to reckon with in the music industry. Even giants like Apple, who used to be the top dog when it comes to digital music, are struggling to keep up with Spotify.
Everyone is looking at Spotify and trying to learn from their successes. One of the ways Spotify has beat the competition is with automatically curated user specific playlists.
Perhaps the best example of this is Discover Weekly which offers weekly dozens of new songs for the user to listen, and all of them are picked, no matter how different they end up being, depending on what you've listened before.
This hugely popular feature has been noticed by the competition, and the newest example of this comes from Google.
In fact, Google has just decided that they can't really do it much better, and have just copied the feature.
According to a Reddit post, this new feature is called Discover Mix. It offers 49 new songs, automatically selected to fit user preferences, every week, Wednesday to be exact.
It seems that it has so far only rolled to a subsection of YouTube Music subscribers, but one could expect it to come available globally soon.
One might think that their brand new 4K television is enough for the long haul, but eventually it's going to run out of steam and you'll get a new one.
Likely at that point you are looking at a new generation of TVs that have upped the ante at least in terms of resolution. 8K TVs are coming whether you feel like you need one or not.
The Consumer Technology Association has now officially revealed their definitions for what constitutes a 8K Ultra HD television. According to their specifications, such a TV should first and foremost be capable of displaying at least 33 million pixels, 7680 horizontally and 4320 vertically.
Furthermore, the TV needs to support scaling to 8K, at least one HDMI input capable of 7680 x 4320 resolution, 10-bit color depth, selection of frame rates (24, 30, 60 fps), ITU-R BT.2100 specced HDR transfer and colorimetry, and HDCP v2.2 or equivalent content protection.
If all this is handled by the TV, it will be able to use the new logo. A modification of the 4K Ultra HD logo has now been made for the new 8K Ultra HD TVs.
New logo will be available for manufacturers to use in their marketing January 1st, 2020 onward.
Artificial intelligence has been developing in massive leaps and bounds in the recent years. This is probably most evident to customers in products like Google Assistant but there's a lot of influential work being done behind the scenes that advance the capabilities.
Microsoft is preparing a Surface event for tomorrow, and they've gotten away without leaking their devices all the way til today.
It has been just few months since Stranger Things' season 3 ended, but now Netflix has already released the first official teaser trailer of the upcoming Stranger Things 4 in its social media accounts.
