voice on technabob...
filed under: gadgets | just plain fun
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Can’t get enough of the sound of your own voice? This desktop bird plugs into your PC and parrots back what it hears.
The electronic parrot offers up an array of random phrases, plucked from the words it overhears, all the while gesticulating its mechanical wings…
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posted: February 28th, 2008
author: technabob
filed under: just plain fun | robotics
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Ever feel like telling one of those stupid voice-recognition phone systems exactly where it can stick option number 2?
Carnegie Mellon alumnus, humorist and robotics author Daniel H. Wilson stars in this humorous video clip of what happened when he got a little too snarky with Diane, the voice behind an Automated Voice Response (AVR) system…
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posted: February 1st, 2008
author: technabob
filed under: retro | video games
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Back in the early 1980s, long before the Xbox 360, Wii and PS3 dominated the “next-gen” video game market, a little known console lived on the cutting-edge of gaming technology. The RDI Halcyon was a LaserDisc-based gaming system which was designed to bring the first full-motion video gaming experience to your living room…
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posted: January 26th, 2008
author: technabob
filed under: gadgets | just plain fun
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Plug this beefy-looking plastic thug into your USB port, and it’s supposed to scare those who approach it away from your computer.
While it’s called the USB Terminator, it looks more like the bouncer who’d tell you to hit the road because you can’t come into the trendy new nightclub dressed like Andy Sipowicz…
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posted: October 15th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: media players | mobile tech
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The engineers over at VoiceSignal have put together a prototype voice recognition application for the iPhone that makes it capable what I’ve been dreaming that Apple would add to its iPods for years. The demo application, called “VTunes” shows off voice-based selection of songs…
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posted: August 23rd, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: future tech | robotics
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Here’s a pretty impressive demonstration of a complex new speech recognition technology. The robot in this video clip is able to listen to three people speaking at the same exact moment, understand exactly what they each said, then process the data dynamically…
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posted: July 28th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: media players | mobile tech
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AT&T and Apple today revealed what it will cost monthly to use your shiny new iPhone. The good news is that all of the calling and data plans include unlimited data, Visual Voicemail and mobile-to-mobile calling.
Plans start at $59.99 per month, depending on how many voice minutes you want. Also bundled in are 200 SMS text messages per month…
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posted: June 26th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: video games
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Soon you’ll be able to speak to your Nintendo Wii. Heck, you’ll be able to sing to it too. Speech recognition middleware maker Fonix today announced the availability of their VoiceIn voice software for the Wii.
The software will enable developers to add voice command capabilities to games with little impact on CPU or memory usage…
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posted: June 25th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: video games
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The editors over at Fortune magazine were kind enough to dissect the Nintendo Wii controller recently, revealing an interesting tidbit.
In addition to all of the well known features of the controller, the Wii-mote appears to have a special chip on board which is designed for voice processing applications…
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posted: May 31st, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: gadgets | media players
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Think you’re the next American Idol? If that’s the case, you might want to pick up one of these MP3 players
The Digital Cowboy CA-K7 media player features the unique ability to remove vocals and a built-in microphone to sing along to your favorite tunes…
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posted: May 25th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: just plain fun | video games
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This clip from a live performance of music from Nintendo games reveals a little known fact. The highly recognizable theme song for Super Mario Brothers actually has lyrics.
click to view this video clip
The song is actually titled “Go Go Mario” and the lyrics are in Japanese…
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posted: March 22nd, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: just plain fun | video games
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Ever wanted to know what the guy who voices Nintendo’s Mario looked like? This short video features the man himself, Charles Martinet as he provides his unique vocal stylings for the little Italian plumber that built an empire…
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posted: March 3rd, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: media players
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If you’ve ever wanted to record FM broadcasts to your MP3 player, but didn’t want the commercials or talk in between songs, today is your lucky day.
The new PopCatcher MusicDock MD-601 is a portable MP3 player and a standalone FM-radio dock that can capture FM broadcasts to MP3, commercial-free…
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posted: January 24th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: gadgets | just plain fun
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This DIY Digital Voice Changer Kit lets you mask the sound of your voice by playing with the pitch and vibrato of your speech. Just speak into the built-in microphone, adjust the pitch control, and you can sound like anything from a hostage taker to a mouse on speed…
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posted: January 19th, 2007
author: technabob
filed under: gadgets
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If you travel a lot, you might want to check out the newly announced Franklin TGA-490 language translator that can actually speak in 12 different languages.
The new portable translator not only translates over 450,000 words and 12,000 phrases, it contains recorded samples of speech to provide accurate pronunciation in all 12 languages…
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posted: January 8th, 2007
author: technabob