Slate: Sing On, Vocal Deepfakes. “Certainly, it’s worrying that vocal avatars could be deployed in the manner that deepfake video and photos have been. For critics, a foreboding future looms where vocal deepfakes erode trust in traditional forms of evidence (and herald even more annoying robocalls and phone scams). For others, this nascent technology holds great promise, offering realistic vocal models for people with speech impairments, more convincing voice assistants, intimate chatbots, and myriad uses in the entertainment industry. Motivated more by artistic interests than commercial applications, musicians in particular envision different possibilities for the future of human and machine collaboration.”
audio
British Library Digital Scholarship Blog: Creating Geo-located Digital Sound Walks
British Library Digital Scholarship Blog: Creating Geo-located Digital Sound Walks. “A few months ago, here at the British Library we held an interesting Exploring with Sound Walks event, that discussed digital projects that connect literature, sound recordings, place, technology and walking. Several digital tools were mentioned by the presenters at this event, so this post, by Marcin Barski, is a practical guide for creating geo-located sound walks.”
Kotaku: Nintendo Is Cracking Down On Popular YouTube Music Channels
Kotaku: Nintendo Is Cracking Down On Popular YouTube Music Channels. “A popular YouTube channel dedicated to sharing video game music was recently hit with over a hundred copyright claims, the latest to fall under intense scrutiny as Nintendo appears to be ramping up efforts to prevent the illicit distribution of its music.”
Researchers propose detecting deepfakes with surprising new tool: Mice (CNET)
CNET: Researchers propose detecting deepfakes with surprising new tool: Mice. “Decades after Terminator’s Skynet first taught us to fear the apocalyptic potential of artificial intelligence, deepfakes represent a less deadly but very real threat from AI. Some researchers are now using a surprising and definitively analog tool to detect AI-manipulated audio: mice.”
Bloomberg: Facebook Paid Contractors to Transcribe Users’ Audio Chats
Bloomberg: Facebook Paid Contractors to Transcribe Users’ Audio Chats. “Facebook Inc. has been paying hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe clips of audio from users of its services, according to people with knowledge of the work. The work has rattled the contract employees, who are not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained — only to transcribe it, said the people, who requested anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.”
Press play: Find and listen to podcast episodes on Search (Google Blog)
Google Blog: Press play: Find and listen to podcast episodes on Search. “Today when you search on Google, you can find many different forms of information, from videos and images to tweets and recipes, but there’s always more information out there. There are more than two million podcasts on the web, and we’re now making it easier to find and listen to podcasts on Search.”
Crux: Site records religious sounds, such as bells, birds and U2
Crux: Site records religious sounds, such as bells, birds and U2. “The jaunty sound of a puja bell rings during an offering at the Jain Center of Central Ohio in southern Delaware County. Birds chirp in the background of a Druid ritual at ComFest in downtown Columbus. And the rhythmic harmony made by musicians at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church performing a U2 song flows during worship at the Dublin Irish Festival. All of these sounds are part of the American Religious Sounds Project, a website and database of audio files from local religious experiences.”
