On Computers

I love listening to books in Amazon’s Audible app. Many of the voice actors dramatize the scenes so well, it’s like listening to a play. But times are changing, thanks to artificial intelligence. Now you don’t have to ask Meryl Streep to come into the studio since you already have a sample of her voice. Audible can clone it with AI. But will the clones be able to perform the full range of characters? For example, when Jonathan Cecil read P.G. Wodehouse, he could convincingly switch from a young man’s role to that of an old woman. Currently, Audible is only inviting a small group of US-based narrators to train AI to replicate their voices. But if this thing takes […]

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Filed under: AI, Amazon, apps, art, crytpocurrency, Internet, security | Comments Off on AUDIBLY AI

To get into Chicago’s Adler Planetarium, all I had was a receipt with a barcode on it, sent to me by email. To make it easier to find, I added it to the Google Wallet app on my Android. The equivalent for iPhone users is Apple Wallet. To add it to Google Wallet, I hit the plus sign in the app and was prompted to choose a category. Since it wasn’t a payment card, a transit pass, a loyalty card, a gift card or an ID card, I chose “everything else.” After I was prompted to take a picture of it, Wallet automatically created a pass reading “Adler Planetarium.” Coming soon, Wallet will also create a digital version of your […]

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Filed under: apps, business, cheap calls, gadgets, Google, Internuts, troubleshooting, Windows | Comments Off on GOOGLE WALLET CREATES DIGITAL PASSPORT

“With the election season going full bore,” a reader wrote, “the robocalls are non-stop.”  I use Magic Jack and haven’t gotten a single one. The Magic Jack gizmo, the size of a thumb drive, replaces your landline phone service with a $43-a-year internet phone service that sounds great to me. Each caller has to punch in whatever single-digit number a Magic Jack voice asks for, and robo dialers can’t do this. So I haven’t gotten any spam since I signed up years ago, though I’m using an old number that used to get a lot of robocalls. Another plus: I like using the landline’s big handset when my sister calls for a long chat. Setup is a snap. First connect […]

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Filed under: AI, cheap calls, games, Internuts, security, shopping, spam | Comments Off on STOP ROBO CALLS

I just had a fascinating conversation with Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher. Instead of just texting him, I talked to him on the phone. It’s the latest feature from the free app, Character.ai. There have already been 80 million calls to characters from the past and present in dozens of languages. The average number of daily calls is 1.25 million. To start, open the app, tap a name and tap the phone icon. The app will say “Listening,” because it’s waiting for you to start speaking. I started by shooting the breeze with Aristotle, then asked about his differences with Plato. Plato, he said, believed we could achieve justice through wealth distribution. Aristotle believed we could attain it by cultivating […]

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Filed under: AI, anti-virus, Apple, apps, games, troubleshooting, virus | Comments Off on TALKING TO CELEBRITIES THROUGH AI

Google Voice, the free phone service, saved me at least three times. It’s a great backup plan. As I was knocking on the door of a relative in San Diego this week, for example, my phone was speeding down the highway in the backseat of a Lyft. “Geez, not again,” I thought. But worst case scenario, I figured I’d still be able to communicate using Google Voice from my laptop, something I did for a whole weekend once. Before giving up however, I looked up Android’s “find my device” website. Once there, I kept clicking “play sound” to make my phone ring from the back seat. It must have driven the driver nuts. He delivered it pronto. But Google Voice […]

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Filed under: AI, Google, photos, wearables | Comments Off on GOOGLE VOICE SAVES THE DAY