Baidu dominates search and many web services inside China, and now it’s poised to release an inexpensive smartphone powered by its own operating system, backed up by extensive cloud services (does that sound familiar?). According to the Wall Street Journal the system comes with 100GB of cloud storage and includes Baidu maps and licensed music services, and the handset is just $158 in equivalent price. The device, merely the first of many that Baidu expects other operators to launch carrying its OS, is being made in collaboration with Foxconn–Apple’s most significant manufacturing partner. Apple has been seeing incredible sales of its iPhone inside China, despite its high price. … [Read more...] about Baidu, China’s Google, To Release Own-Brand Smartphone, Cloud Service [Updated]
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Mozilla’s open source voice recognition tool nears human-like accuracy
The free-software company also on Wednesday released a first set of crowdsourced recordings under its Common Voice project, designed to let anyone train and test machine learning algorithms to recognize speech. The dataset includes almost 400,000 downloadable samples, adding up to 500 hours of speech. More than 20,000 people from around the world have contributed to a call for recordings, which Mozilla hopes will help future voice-powered systems fluently understand a wide variety of accents and types of speech. “We at Mozilla believe technology should be open and accessible to all, and that includes voice,” Mozilla Senior Vice President of Emerging Technologies Sean White wrote in a blog post. … [Read more...] about Mozilla’s open source voice recognition tool nears human-like accuracy
China Has Its Own Alexa, But It’s No Mere Knockoff
But that standout design belies Baidu’s actual strategy for winning the virtual assistant wars–first in its home market of China, soon in Japan, and maybe someday in Western markets. As a Google-like web giant that runs the most popular Chinese search engine, Baidu would rather help other companies release their own hardware than sell homegrown products like the Raven H. To that end, the Raven H costs about $250–four times the price of third-party speakers running Baidu’s DuerOS AI. … [Read more...] about China Has Its Own Alexa, But It’s No Mere Knockoff
Why Hollywood isn’t worried about TikTok being banned by Trump
“Many of the earliest creators wanted a career in film, TV, and music,” says Brent Weinstein, chief innovation officer at UTA. “They viewed YouTube as a way to go direct to audience and build up a fan base and circumvent the traditional gatekeepers. Now, a very small percentage of our digital-native clients prioritize film and TV. They’re happy to do a guest-star role or, on occasion, [pursue] an idea for a TV show to star in or produce. But being a TV star or movie star is no longer the primary goal of many of our clients.” … [Read more...] about Why Hollywood isn’t worried about TikTok being banned by Trump
Big tech needs new, powerful government watchdogs to enforce real transparency
In addition to meaningful, industry-wide regulation, consumers can drive action through advocacy. Consumers need to be vocal about what they expect from platforms. If Twitter’s “trending topics” feature is spreading disinformation, consumers should (and did) call on the company to turn it off pending independent examination. And if a platform emerges as more transparent than its competitors—as TikTok increasingly appears to be doing via its Transparency Center—then consumers can sign up for that platform over others. At scale, this turns transparency into a trend, and then a competitive advantage. … [Read more...] about Big tech needs new, powerful government watchdogs to enforce real transparency
