Voice Recognition goes reverse

Ever wondered what happened to the good old idea of voice recognition we’ve seen in some of those bond films? Well who cares a SpinVox has been developing a system based in Buckinghamshire and is hoping to take things one step further with its new system that converts voice messages to text. This new technology has already changed over 50million audio messages into text and has now been taken up by 12 carriers including Vodafone in Spain, Telstra in Australia and broadband telephony provider Skype. How good is this new technology? Mr Doulton says “You have to speak slowly. It works most of the time but it doesn’t understand everything you say and you have to train it and people get frustrated with that,” so its not perfect but it wont be long till it is.The new age is coming and with so much new technology it’s hard to keep up!

Apples strikes back

In a massive security patch Apple has mended over 90 security vulnerabilities. The new update is one of the biggest Apple have done over the last year. In Security Update 2008-002, Apple is attempted to fix 87 security flaws that span 30 separate applications, a number of functions in OS X, as well as other platforms that range from Apache to X11. The patch has attempted to solve not just windows or Mac singularly but both! with fixes for more than a dozen vulnerabilities. The patches can be downloaded manually from Apple’s download support or via software update. So far so good (visit http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ for the update)

Gold going up? What is it worth

Gold is seen as a safe and a valuable asset. Buying gold is as simple as doing your shopping, with there being a range of gold from an ounce to a tenth of an ounce. The people who’ve put in long term investments in gold have started to cash in increasing the business of gold buyers with sales from ingots to gold ID bracelets. The UK’s Indian community has helped drive the demand for gold and the community buys it for such events as weddings and investments. The market for gold is said to only raise in the future so maybe its time I went out and invested,  maybe you too.

Investors are hinting that gold may reach that grand 4 digits of 1,000 per ounce, so this is the time to buy and make some good return.

Studentstyle - review

A new Website stemming from the west midlands is attempting to take over the Google rankings for the best student information available. Already it has seen success in the local community and is under talks of integrating the website with local schools and colleges, the creator of the site (Tyrone Campbell) is adamant in trying to bring out together all the information students need to know about university out. Unfortunately for many students getting the information they need is not available from their peers and teacher and is also a difficult area to find any information on around the net. StudentStyle.net is a website built by students for students and is regularly updated and tweaked to enable users to get to the information they need fast and effectively. StudentStyle.net is facing tough competition in the form of an 11 year old competitor but the creator hopes it can break through this barrier with fresh new, quality information.www.studentstyle.net

Ps3 + live support?

Sony announced today that Blue-ray will be taking the next step. Blue ray will be updated to version 2.0, known as BD live. BD live has such features as downloading new content, social networking and multiplayer gaming. The new system showed its stuff at the consumer electronics show with people saying only positive things. Sony stated last year that it will be supporting blue ray and it looks like this tag team will be a gamers best friend in the world of play station.

Universal plan

Morris approached Apple with an idea to offer a device that comes pre-programmed with Universal Music’s entire library on it (sounds good yer?). A music industry source said Wednesday night that Apple has broached the idea of bundling music with the other three major labels but didn’t show much enthusiasm for the plan. In the proposal Universal Music pitched to Apple, the device would come with download free as much as you can, listen as many times as u want, lasting for around a year, and then owners would have to join the subscription service. The plan seemingly was derailed when the U.S. Justice Department began investigating if such a consortium would violate antitrust laws. What can’t be overstated is Universal Music’s desire to get their share of device sales “The labels would just be turning over their music to another Apple-only environment,” Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey said. “Nobody would want anything else.” If this plan was made real it would kill off CD’s for sure and only the die hard fans will want the CD’s.

Intel and cheap laptops?

Yes, how is that title possible?

But, Intel’s low cost class mate laptop is designed to be an inexpensive machine for schoolchildren to be used where computer technology remains relatively inaccessible. The first-generation Classmate PC is being tested in schools in California, Texas in Oregon and other countries. The ones being tested in the United States are made by Taiwanese manufacturer Elite group Computer Systems. Others are made and sold by companies in Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan, Mexico and Libya, Kwan said. Intel has not disclosed how much revenue it has made from the first-generation computers but the idea is to produce the new laptops in a range of different versions which have an almost mix and match scheme on it where prices will be according to the laptop + the software installed on it, either way it looks like Intel will be flying high in revenue.

Microsft - are your sure?

Service pack 1 for Microsoft vista was supposed to be the saviour of all those annoying errors correct? Well Microsoft also said it may cause problems with a few systems, not true. The new service pack update has actuly effected a high majority of PCs from Hewlett-Packard Gateway, Lenovo, and other major computer makers that contain a widely used Intel chipset can’t be upgraded to Windows VistaService Pack 1 if they’re running certain drivers. Microsoft has now released a list of all the drivers that cannot run the new service pack, however, reports are still constantly streaming into then about how vista is wreaking havoc on their PC’s and Laptops. The cure was a curse so be careful if you’re thinking of updating your Vista.

Tom Clancy monetizing every step

Tom Clancy doesn’t own his brand any more. Back in August of 2000, French videogame publisher Ubisoft purchased Tom Clancy’s Morrisville-based game studio, Red Storm Entertainment, which gave them the rights to his hit game franchises from Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter as well as the upcoming Tom Clancy’s EndWar. But it doesn’t stop there, on Thursday, the publisher bought the Tom Clancy name 100% so now no royalty fee needs to be paid. Ubisoft has acquired all intellectual property rights to the Tom Clancy name, on a perpetual basis and free of all related future royalty payments, this includes anything else outside of the gaming from bill boards to signings to books to anything and everything basically. When he sold his name did he sell the gamers hearts?

Duitar Gero. Get it? + DS

Activision said on Thursday it will release another version of its “Guitar Hero” video game for Nintendo’s DS, bringing its blockbuster musical series to the most popular handheld gaming device and giving a great range of choice to all the Guitar Hero fans out there. The new game Guitar Hero: On Tour will include a plug-in accessory and mock guitar-pick to let players tap out notes on the device’s screen in time with songs from a range of bands Activision said the game will come out this summer, but it did not disclose the price. On a good day DS game costs $30, but the inclusion of a hardware accessory may push the price of “On Tour” much higher. Tell me what you think.