[Google making robot voices sound human]

No, Google
hasn’t acquired Groupon (yet). But it does have a smaller, though very
interesting acquisition to announce: it’s just acquired Phonetic Arts, a
company based in the UK that works on speech synthesis in games.

Phonetic
Arts makes technology that can convert lines of recorded dialog into a ‘speech
library’ — feed it a few hundred lines of recordings using your voice, and
it can then piece together those sounds to generate new sentences that sound
surprisingly realistic. Up until now Phonetic Arts has primarily been focused on
using this technology for games, but Google intends to use it more broadly to
make its own automated voices sound more fluid and human.

In
case you haven’t noticed, Google has been paying a huge amount of attention to
its voice recognition and transcription technologies over the last few years
(they’ve been researching it much longer, but now the tech is making it into
products). YouTube now includes automatic voice transcription captions for
millions of videos; Android has voice recognition integrated throughout the OS;
and Google has voice search apps for other mobile platforms, like the iPhone.

But
while these voice recognition apps are getting much better, whenever they need
to read something back to you (for example, for language translation or GPS
navigation) it’s quite obvious that you’re listening to a computer. Which is
where Google is planning to start applying Phonetic Arts’ technology.

Also
worth pointing out: in its official blog post, Google specifically talks about
the growing tech scene in London:

There’s
a particular focus right now in the U.K. on technology and innovation, and
we’re delighted to be deepening our investment in the country with this
acquisition. We already have a strong engineering center in London and look
forward to welcoming Phonetic Arts to the team. We are excited about their
technology, and while we don’t have plans to share yet, we’re confident that
together we’ll move a little faster towards that Star Trek future.

[Wait for Nokia N8 or get H8?]

So we’ve got the Nokia N8. And now we also got the H8. We know that handset manufactures often release almost identical devices, but more interesting is when other producers start to offer similar smart phones. Behold the Nokia N8 and the H8 below. They don’t only look the same; the knock-off actually has some not-so-standard-but-interesting features such as dual-sim and TV reception. Can you tell which is which?

You probably did guess correctly: the first one is the N8, the second one the H8. Remarkable fact: the Nokia cost five times more than the N8 ($549 versus $119). From what I read, although a knock-off, the H8 still contains some mention-worthy features. It has 3.8″ touchscreen, which is larger than the Nokia N8′s 3.5″ touchscreen, it’s got front and back facing cameras and it works on some Android clone (see Gadgets Republic).

With the H8 costing only one-fifth of the price, and knowing that smart phones age faster than fruit nowadays, would it be worth it to wait for Nokia’s price to get down (while new smart phones comes out *sigh*) or to simply buy the H8 now?

[Jobs, jobs, and more jobs......]

as to a student who just graduate from college,the job is very difficult to get.

[What Are You Thankful For?]

I want to thank for the people who love me as well as who hate me.i believe that anyone is very kind.

[The Pacific]

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

This sentence shows a correct truth.