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Microsoft contractors listen to some Skype calls and Cortana commands
Microsoft is the latest company charged with listening to its users calls and voice commands. A report by Vice found that contractors are listening to bits of conversations collected through Skype's translation service. Some contractors are also listening to voice commands spoken to Cortana.
Surprise: People are listening to your Google Assistant queries
It's no secret that Google records your conversations with Google Assistant after you say a "wake word." But what you might not know is that Google uses contractors to manually review a handful of those recordings, about 0.2 percent. Yesterday, VRT NWS released reports detailing how it listened to thousands of recordings leaked by a whistleblower working for Google. At least one audio clip included a couple's address and personal information about their family.
Broods used the Microsoft Band to create music-video magic
Microsoft is no stranger to collaborating with musicians to show off creative uses for its technology. With the Music x Technology project, the company has worked with acts like Big Grams, Neon Indian, KEXP, Phantogram and others to use its Kinect to enhance the musical experience for fans. I got a first-hand look at "Realiti: Inside the Music of Grimes" back at Moogfest in May, an exhibit that let fans remix parts of a song by interacting with a mesh surface. With the help of creative agency Listen, Microsoft teamed up with electropop duo Broods to produce a music video using the Microsoft Band.
With Kinect, I made a Grimes remix just by moving my hands
When it comes to electronic music, it's easy to see the ties between art and technology. In fact, that's pretty much the entire goal of Moogfest, a music festival that celebrates more than just its synthesizer roots. At this year's event, Microsoft teamed up with Moogfest to create an interactive installation that allows attendees to remix Grimes' "Realiti" by pushing on a mesh panel. Kinect cameras track a person's hand gestures to control different parts of the song.
Rockstar shares the Grand Theft Auto soundtracks on iTunes and Spotify
Rockstar, the developers of the very popular Grand Theft Auto series, has kindly set up playlists for every one of the series' radio stations, for use in both iTunes and Spotify. The GTA series is well-known for its music, and when Rockstar ported both GTA3 and GTA: Vice City over to iOS, we were fortunate enough to get the great soundtracks with them. But, of course, you can't always be playing the game, so if you want to listen to the music on your own, you can load one of these up in iTunes, and listen away. Unfortunately, the games' commercials are not available in iTunes. Rockstar has set up a special "Advertising Council" site to let you listen in directly to the hilarious parody commercials from the series instead. And of course this is all done in prelude to the upcoming Grand Theft Auto 5, expected sometime later on this year. No word yet if there'll be a Mac (or even an iOS) release for the newest game, but we'll keep an ear open. [via Joystiq]
Listen offers innovative iTunes interface on iOS
I'm sort of torn about Listen. For US$0.99, this iOS utility from Daft Logic Studio offers a lively and engaging music interface. At the same time, most people experience audio with their ears, and not their eyes and fingers. The app is well made, with lots of features and special effects -- as you can see in the video that follows. It was nice to use even if I think a few of the effects are slightly over the top, such as the ripples on play/pause. To sum up Listen, it offers a suite of custom gestures for controlling your music, social-network integration and caffeinated auto-lock override, so your phone stays awake if you so desire. As far as apps go, this may be a "love it or leave it" title. Me? I like it. I appreciate the design effort that went into its GUI. It showcases lots of clever ideas like dragging the playing music to the feature you want to invoke. Will it be a successful long-term app on my phone? That, I'm less sure of, but I give snaps to the developers for their creativity and I look forward to giving it a good trial run over time.
Facebook places 'Listen' button on artist pages, now takes you to your go-to streaming app instantly
If navigating away from a musician's timeline on Facebook to get a quick listen isn't your favorite activity, you're in luck. The folks in Palo Alto dropped a "Listen" button on artist pages today, giving you access to popular tracks instantly. Situated right beside the ever important "Like" button, the new feature first asks if you'd like to open your favorite music-streaming app -- either Spotify, MOG, Slacker Radio or Rdio. If you've yet to link a service to FB, it'll ask which you'd prefer to use. Once prompted in Spotify, for example, the app heads to the band's library and begins playing selections from the Top Hits category. The "Listen" button then becomes a play / pause control and clicking one on another artist's page makes the change in the app in a flash. To grab a look at the new control in action, head to your band of choice to give it a try.
Listen to the Engadget Mobile Podcast, live at 1PM EST!
It's a special Thursday afternoon edition of the Engadget Mobile Podcast! We'll all be en route to Barcelona tomorrow, so we've bumped it up a day early to help you get even more excited about Mobile World Congress. So join Myriam, Brad and Joseph as we all talk ourselves silly about things present and very near future on today's podcast, live at 1PM EST! February 23, 2012 1:00 PM EST
Navi could have been a lot more annoying (and hairy)
Navi in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was annoying in a "fly in your kitchen at dinnertime" way, but the filmmakers at Humble Punch Productions have shown us it could've been worse, like "12 foot radioactive cockroach in your meatloaf as you serve it to the President and First Lady" annoying.
Talkcast this evening at 10pm EST: Best of the year
Our weekly talkcast (so called because you yourself can call in and talk with us live) is back on the virtual airwaves again this evening at 10pm Eastern, and the topic of the day is the topic of the year: we'll take a look at our top posts of 2009, from all the news surrounding last year's WWDC to our most popular tip of 2009 and all of the other stories on the site that floated your boat this (wait, we mean "last"!) year. And we'll of course talk about the year in apps, discussing both our favorite apps overall and our favorite games of the year. Should be fun, so join us, won't you? To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the "TalkShoe Web" button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk with you then!
Apple launches iTunes Preview for external browser links
This is the kind of thing that probably should have been done a long time ago, but Macworld is reporting that Apple has launched iTunes Preview, a page that appears when you click an iTunes link (like this one) and your browser sends you over to iTunes. Previously, you just got that placeholder page that said "One Moment Please" and asked if you wanted to open the link in an external application, but with iTunes Preview, you get a nicely laid out page with information and reviews (and your browser still opens up the iTunes store). Currently it only seems to work with music -- movies and television only get a small thumbnail, and applications get the same old gray page. But that'll probably change before long -- it's much smoother to see what you're clicking through to, and of course there's the added bonus for people who don't actually have iTunes installed. As MacWorld points out, there are actually no "preview" buttons on the page -- you can't listen to music there, only click through to the iTunes store. But like I said, it's better than a blank window and a browser popup asking for your permission. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this grow a lot more in the future.
WoW Insider Show today at 3:30pm Eastern
Gonna be a great podcast this afternoon -- we'll welcome two familiar voices to the show, including the great Zach Yonzon (have you seen his new Battlemasters comic yet?) and the talbuk Mike "Belfaire" Sacco, as well as Turpster and I as usual. We'll be talking about (what else?) patch 3.2 and what we think so far, including the new 5-man instance, bugs that have appeared so far, and everything else we like and hate about it. And if we have time, we'll also talk about classes and what they get invited to groups as (you know Turpster will love seeing that big slice of Warriors on the tanking chart). And of course we'll answer your email as well -- you can send us whatever you'd like us to read or talk about at theshow@wow.com. It all kicks off at August 8, 2009 3:30 PM EDTvar date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone GMT"+offset; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page, or, as always, you can find the embedded stream below. Be sure to stop by this afternoon and give us a listen live -- you'll enjoy it, or your money back*!Note: As the podcast is free to listen to, you will not be receiving any money back. But you will enjoy the show. If not, you can blame the Ret Monkey. That's what we do.
RetroMacCast interviews Rob Janoff
The guys over at the RetroMacCast sent us a link to their latest episode, featuring an interview with none other than Rob Janoff, the designer of Apple's old rainbow Mac logo. The interview starts a little less than halfway into the show, and it's cool to hear a voice right out of Apple's past. They talk about the inception of the logo -- how Apple came to Janoff's firm and what they originally asked for in terms of a design. He actually had very little guidance when first creating the logo, and in fact hadn't seen any of Apple's branding or even heard of the company before he created the now-iconic image. He also talks about how lucky he was in choosing the image -- he saw it as a pretty obvious choice to use a picture of fruit for a company named after said fruit, but like any great logo, there ended up being layers of meaning behind that apple bite (or byte, as he points out).Nothing really earthshaking in the interview (he hasn't had contact with Apple since, and even he says that the mythology behind the company has much more to do than just the familiar logo), but hey, if you're hanging out today during Memorial Day and need something interesting to listen to while barbecuing, you can tune in and learn a little bit about Apple's corporate history.
WoW Insider Show goes live tomorrow afternoon
Have you seen the WoW Insider Show live yet? You've probably heard it, through a subscription over on iTunes or even on our sidebar (we post the new episodes there every Monday morning), but if you haven't come to see it live, you're missing out on half the fun. We're going live again on Ustream tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm Eastern (as we do every Saturday), and we're starting off 2009 with a bang: Turpster is back after all of his holiday hijinx, we'll have one or two WoW Insider bloggers to talk about the news of the past week, we'll have a brand new intro (you can create your own as an mp3 file and email it to us at theshow@wow.com), and one more thing: we're giving away an Authenticator. That's right, straight from BlizzCon, we've got a limited edition Authenticator to give away to one lucky listener of the live show. They're out of stock and hard to find, but you can win one just by tuning in on Saturday.And of course we'll do all of the usual stuff -- answer your emails, chat with our live chatters, and talk about the most popular posts on WoW Insider from the past week. It's sure to be a great time, so if you've been a regular in the chat room from day one or have never heard the show live before, definitely tune in. We've even placed the Ustream feed right after this break, so just tune in right here at 3:30pm Eastern tomorrow (here's a time zone calculator if you need it) to hear our podcast the best way you can: live.
All the World's a Stage: A good roleplayer is a good person first
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, commentary, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.Gamers, and citizens of the Internet in general, are not known for being very sociable people. To me, it's always been a big mystery why John Gabriel's GIF Theory seems so apt for so many of us. It's hard for me to fathom why people enjoy acting rude, crude, or unpleasantly in any situation. I hear them telling me "because it's fun!" but personally I can't imagine getting any kicks out of it.The roleplaying community is one of those few online spaces where things actually seem a bit different, however. Many people are not roleplayers at all, but they join up on RP servers just because roleplayers care about things like grammar and seem to be more polite in general. Since roleplaying is an inherently cooperative activity, people who want to roleplay first have to be willing to communicate nicely with others. There are, of course, players on RP realms with whom real communication seems impossible, but those people usually aren't actually roleplayers to begin with. They get about 10 seconds of attention before most roleplayers start ignoring them completely.To be a good roleplayer, one must first be a good person. The qualities of character that open doors of friendship and cooperation in real life are the same qualities that will help make roleplaying a positive and rewarding experience for you in WoW. Even if one wants to play an evil character, one must do it in such a way that others can tell you're actually a really nice and caring player behind the evil mask. Sometimes it's also handy to remind oneself how not to act like that proverbial Internet Fudgewad. All the World's a Stage is your weekly source of roleplaying tips and helpful ideas that many players can benefit from. Be sure to read on below, follow the 10 commandments of roleplaying, and avoid acting like Mary Sue in order to assure surefire protection from the evil voice of Internet Fudgewaddiness within us all.
Make your iPhone listen to your radio -- and tell you what's playing
Picture it: you're riding in the car and a great song comes on the radio. You're dying to know what it is so you can go buy it ASAP but there's no satellite radio receiver to tell you what's playing. How can you find out what song it is? Whip out your iPhone, put it near the car speakers, and watch the screen. Poof! There's the song, artist, and album.No, I am not kidding. Our own Erica Sadun was inspired by someone who came up with the original idea, she set off to make it happen, and the result is Listen. It's still "very beta" but, hey, it's still one of the coolest iPhone hacks I've ever heard of. Go check it out and let us know in the comments how it works for you.
WoW Insider Show Episode 17: Sunwell, Lion's Pride, and Spleen the undead warrior
Our latest podcast is now available to listen to over on WoW Radio's website-- in it, Chris Jahosky, Turpster, and I all chat about everything there was to chat about in Warcraft the last week. Chris Jahosky of WoW Insider was on, and so we chatted about his being a Paladin, and about his ongoing graphic novel, available right here on the site. We answered a little reader mail, including how to deal with having a non-RP name on an RP server We talked about the new Sunwell deets revealed last week, and what we're excited to see. Apparently 17 hours isn't all that much, when you think about it. And we talked about our best wipes ever. Plus lots more. If you hear something interesting and have a comment, feel free to email us at theshow@wow.com, and let us know what you think about anything and everything.And stay tuned-- the WoW Insider Show goes on the air every Saturday afternoon at 3:30pm EST, so there's just a few more days until you can listen to us live again, and get your audio fill of everything going down in the World of Warcraft.
First WoW Insider Show episode available for download
A big thanks to everyone that tuned into the very first episode of the WoW Insider Show-- lots of good times were had as WoW Radio's Turpster, and Dan O'Halloran and I discussed everything from whether it's OK for a guild leader to ninja a mount to whether we'll fly in Northrend before level 78 or not, all the way back to why gold farming might be OK. Actually, Dan stands alone on that last one-- you can listen to the show, right now, over on WoW Radio's homepage for it to find out exactly what happened. And it's also in iTunes-- here's the link for the iTunes Store if you've got iTunes installed.Congratulations to listener Chris S for randomly winning the Murloc suit giveaway! Stay tuned for many more giveaways on the show. And if you have comments or suggestions for the show, our email address is theshow@wow.com.And the WoW Insider Show rolls on-- this coming Saturday, September 8th, at 3:30 pm EST, we'll have our second episode, and you'll be able to listen live over at WoW Radio just like last week. We'll cover everything that's happened in the World of Warcraft over the past week, as well as keep you entertained and give you exclusive insight on everything we write about here at WoW Insider.So thanks everyone who listened in this week, and be sure to check us out on every Saturday, kicking off at 3:30pm EST.
