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The BBC's Beeb voice assistant is ready for testing on PC
The BBC is launching its voice assistant 'Beeb' in beta.
Voice assistants still have problems understanding strong accents
Cultural biases in tech aren't just limited to facial recognition -- they crop up in voice assistants as well. The Washington Post has partnered with research groups on studies showing that Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant aren't as accurate understanding people with strong accents, no matter how fluent their English might be. People with Indian accents were at a relatively mild disadvantage in one study, but the overall accuracy went down by at least 2.6 percent for those with Chinese accents, and by as much as 4.2 percent for Spanish accents. The gap was particularly acute in media playback, where a Spanish accent might net a 79.9 accuracy rate versus 91.8 percent from an Eastern US accent.
Cortana won't sound like Cortana on UK Windows Phones
Now that Microsoft is rolling Windows Phone 8.1 out to handsets, users can now start chatting with its new virtual assistant, Cortana. Right now, she's limited to the US, but the Cortana man at Microsoft, Marcus Ash, has tweeted that "barring an unforeseen issue," the UK developer preview will go live in "less than two weeks" and, wait for it, not feature the reassuring tones of Jen Taylor, the original talent behind Halo's Cortana. Like Apple's Siri, Cortana will adopt a British accent when it rolls out, presumably to make owners feel more comfortable when interacting with the digital sidekick. Sure, she'll still take notes, dictate messages and offer up calendar alerts and reminders, she just won't sound like the Cortana you've relied upon during many a gaming session (unless you indulge in a bit of location trickery).
Hallooo computarrrr! Siri not yet compatible with Scottish accents
Let's open with a reality check: Siri is still in beta. Apple's new voice recognition service is just getting started, and many of us have found out the hard way that Apple's definition of "beta" is closer to what many other developers would call "alpha." That having been said, The Daily Mail's reports of Scottish accents flummoxing Siri still had us trading Sean Connery jokes back and forth in the TUAW newsroom. According to The Daily Mail, numerous videos have surfaced of Scottish users trying (and failing) to interact with Siri. One tells Siri, "Gonnae no dae that," which Siri interprets as "Going Akila." Siri interprets a Scot's charming "Can you dance with me?" as "Can you dutch women?" Siri's confusion doesn't stop at Scottish accents, of course. My father's wife is from the Philippines, and Siri has difficulty understanding her. I'm quite curious to see how Siri responds to me; my accent has become a somewhat corrupted melange of Pacific Northwest English and New Zealand English. Apple's more primitive predecessor to Siri, Voice Control, correctly interprets my commands only about 75 percent of the time. Somewhat predictably, the paper tries to spin this as a disaster for Apple -- "Disgruntled messages have littered gadget websites and forums" according to the Mail. That response comes across as reactionary and a bit unfair, especially since one of the YouTube videos embedded on the Mail's own page (and embedded below) shows Siri reacting to a Scottish accent with rather impressive accuracy. Of course, another video shows a Scot trying to get Siri to "create a reminder" for close to two minutes without success, so the service definitely has some room for improvement. Despite decades of work, voice recognition software is still basically in its infancy. I think my dog probably understands some spoken commands better than Siri does despite all the work that's gone into the software. Then again, my dog is a genius, and Siri has been in public beta for less than two weeks. Give it some time to scale, and eventually I'm sure Siri will far exceed my greyhound's ability to interpret verbal interactions. It may even exceed my abilities someday -- I have a Scottish friend in Christchurch (hallooo Stuarrrrt), and I can understand maybe one out of every five words he says.
You've come a long way, Jonathan Ive
It's gotta be tough for a guy who designs the sexiest devices on the planet. No, not the million-dollar paycheck or the international fame and fortune. When you're one of the world's top designers, you must make sure your image portrays cool and sexy. If you're a built guy with a shaved head and an English accent, you've done a good job. On the other hand, if you're wearing beige fleeces with huge collars and sporting a pretty wicked 'stache, you might have a problem convincing people that you, y'know, design some of the sleekest, sexiest devices on the planet. Oh, how the Internet is going to make all of us have to relive our worse style decisions over and over. Gizmodo has dug up this video clip of Jonathan Ive talking talking about how a computer "can be sexy" circa 1999. You've come a long way, Jonny...
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a troll
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the third in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class well, without embarrassing yourself.Trolls are based on the "wild savages" you've seen in the movies or on TV, from King Kong to Discovery channel. If you've seen people hunting with spears, walking around in the forest without many clothes on, or dancing around in costumes and face paint in some kind of ritual you've never heard of, you've seen the apparent inspiration for trolls in World of Warcraft. The culture of Warcraft trolls are a mishmash of all the different myths and rumors that have grown up about some of the earth's indigenous peoples that live outside modern society: Strange voodoo beliefs and rituals? Check. Bloodthirsty headhunters with a taste for cannibalism? Check. Witch doctors, shrunken heads, human sacrifice, and rampant superstition? Check on all counts.It's important to note here that troll culture is based on the myths about some indigenous people, not on their reality. Cannibalism, for instance, has been rare among human societies, nearly always viewed as anathema, but among the trolls of Azeroth, it appears to be the rule rather than the exception. Unbiased study of the world's primal religions has shown them to be far more sophisticated than early (and prejudiced) Western explorers ever imagined. Don't listen to the Jamaican accent trolls have in the game and assume that trolls are based on real life Jamaicans. There is nowhere near the correlation here that we might find with the dwarves and the Scots, or even the draenei and the eastern Europeans that they sound like. Indeed, one could argue that the choice of a Jamaican accent to represent the trolls and their culture reveals a great deal of ignorance we Americans have regarding Caribbean islanders -- but that's a discussion I'll not go into today.Suffice it to say that as a member of the Darkspear tribe, the only tribe of trolls to join the Horde, your character living in a time of great change for your people. Your tribe is the first to embrace the more modern values promoted by Thrall, to take up the spiritual practices of shamanism, and to integrate itself with other races. Although the Darkspears have officially given up human sacrifice, cannibalism, and now tell you to "stay away from the voodoo," these practices are all elements of religion and superstition that your character would have grown up with, and may find it hard to let go of completely.
News recycling: Brain Age doesn't like your accent
Bringing an old story back to the forefront with a new angle, BBC show Watchdog reports that Michelle Livesey of Manchester can't get Brain Training (Brain Age in the States) to recognize her saying "yellow" -- she's apparently not saying it "posh" enough. Although Watchdog added a new dimension with Brain Training's inability to recognize yellow, the original problem color blue is also in the mix. The issue is all in the accents.According to Nintendo, on page 47 of the Brain Training manual it gives hints on how to use the voice recognition properly. Suggestion number four is: "Pronounce each word as clearly as possible, and try to avoid using strong dialects or accents." Just check out Nicole Kidman saying scissors in a Nintendo ad to see how things could go wrong with accents. Nintendo claims it has been continually monitoring the voice recognition efficiency in its software since the game launched in June '06. We believe them, just as long as we don't have to say the color blue, or yellow if we're from Manchester.
Guilty Gear waggles into the US, leaving glitches in Japan
Aksys Games, publishers of Hoshigami Remix on the DS, have announced that they're localizing Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, the fifth revision of the third entry in Arc System Works' totally metal 2D fighting series. The new version includes 2 new characters, A.B.A. and Holy Order Sol. Aksys claims that A.B.A. has "never been seen outside of Japan," a claim that is only true if nobody bought Guilty Gear Isuka. In addition, Siliconera found a post on Aksys's official forums stating that they'll be fixing the bugs that were prevalent in the Japanese PS2 release. We consider "not being broken" a significant gameplay feature.Finally, in a decisive victory for Internet linguists everywhere, the official press release advertises, in addition to Gamecube controller and Classic Controller play, "Waggle controls exclusive to the Wii!" It's, like, an official term now.
Gundam 0079 revealed, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core announced
We have yet to get the first Gundam game in the US, and Bandai Namco is already moving on to another one. Whereas SD Gundam SCAD Hammers used the pudgy lil' SD Gundam characters, this one is based on Gundam 0079, which is serious business. We've got a scan featuring the first images from the game after the break.Also announced, but not yet shown, was a Wii version of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core-- this is apparently 2D Fighter Announcement Week. We're a little scared to see how a precise 2d fighting game will use the Wiimote, and we're hoping that we can skirt the issue with configurable Classic Controller functionality. At least until Hori gets around to releasing a wireless joystick.
