The Conversation: ASMR: what we know so far about this unique brain phenomenon – and what we don’t. “ASMR is the third most popular search term on youtube worldwide. But in case you haven’t heard of it, it stands for autonomous sensory meridian response. ASMR is a complex emotional state that only some people experience when they hear, see, and feel certain ‘triggers,’ such as whispering, delicate hand movements, and light touch. The feeling is described as a tingling sensation beginning at the crown of the head which can spread down the neck and limbs.”
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Search for Sound: A New Feature on Internet Archive (Data Horde)
Data Horde: Search for Sound: A New Feature on Internet Archive. “If you’ve been browsing the Internet Archive recently, you might have noticed a new search option called ‘Search radio transcripts’. You can now search through radio broadcasts as if looking up something in a book, it’s pretty neat!”
Carnegie Mellon University: Live-Streamed Game Collects Sounds To Help Train Home-Based Artificial Intelligence
Carnegie Mellon University: Live-Streamed Game Collects Sounds To Help Train Home-Based Artificial Intelligence . “From yawning to closing the fridge door, a lot of sounds occur within the home. Such sounds could be useful for home-based artificial intelligence applications, but training that AI requires a robust and diverse set of samples. A video game developed by Carnegie Mellon University researchers leverages live streaming to collect sound donations from players that will populate an open-source database.”
MakeUseOf: 6 Free Online Tools to Download Text-to-Speech as MP3 Audio
MakeUseOf: 6 Free Online Tools to Download Text-to-Speech as MP3 Audio. “Text to speech tools help you turn the written word into the spoken word. Text to speech technology has come a long way over the years, with male and female voices, different accents, and the ability to control volume, pitch, rate, and more. If you need a service to convert text to speech and then download it as an MP3 file, we’ve rounded up the best free websites to do that. The emphasis here is on tools that give you a file at the end of it, rather than just playing the conversion.”
Creative Commons: Say What? Jonathan Poritz Records All CC Certificate Content As Openly Licensed Audio!
Creative Commons: Say What? Jonathan Poritz Records All CC Certificate Content As Openly Licensed Audio! . “Creative Commons provides educators and the expertise they need to harness Open Educational Resources (OER). We strive to make education more accessible to more people around the world. One way we do this is through our CC Certificate training, which is licensed CC BY 4.0 and available for use. Today, we’re delighted to announce our training materials are now available as audio files licensed CC BY 4.0. Thanks to the fantastic work of Jonathan Poritz, we can now offer materials in another format for learners.”
Tech & Learning: 4 Best Free and Easy Audio Recording Tools for Google Slides
Tech & Learning: 4 Best Free and Easy Audio Recording Tools for Google Slides. “You see, even though we can now add audio to a Google slideshow, there isn’t a simple built-in recording button. Instead you need to record the audio separately with another program, then save it to Drive, and then add it to a slide. So that brings up the big question: What are some easy ways to record audio? When using my Windows PC, I can use a free program such as Audacity. Students often will be using Chromebooks, so we need some web-based options. We are going to take a look at four excellent, free options for recording audio right in your web browser, and then how to add that audio to Google Slides.”
FAD Magazine: Swiss artist Zimoun to premiere audio performance online
FAD Magazine: Swiss artist Zimoun to premiere audio performance online. “The NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) Art Gallery has announced the rollout of its second digital archive: the ZIMOUN exhibition. Going live on June 9, ZIMOUN is the second in a series of launches inviting the public to reunite with curators and artists as part of TRACE: Archives and Reunions. To mark each launch, The NYUAD Art Gallery will host a reunion with the artist. For this reunion, Swiss artist Zimoun will premiere a new work composed specifically for the Gallery’s online audience: a sound performance, to be experienced at home, with headphones, in the dark.”
Scientific American: COVID Has Changed Soundscapes Worldwide
Scientific American: COVID Has Changed Soundscapes Worldwide. “The Silent Cities project is collecting sound from cities around the planet during the coronavirus pandemic to give researchers a database of natural sound in areas usually filled with human-generated noise.”
Live for Live Music: Library Of Congress Announces New DJ Tool For Sampling Tracks
Live for Live Music: Library Of Congress Announces New DJ Tool For Sampling Tracks. “Now with Citizen DJ, users are able to thumb through decade’s worth of material from the Library’s audio and moving-image collections. These sounds can come from a variety of resources, stretching back to early recordings of traveling vaudeville acts, royalty-free music, interviews, speeches, and more. While users are able to download specific audio files or mass files in bulk, they are also encouraged to interact with the original source material from the Library’s massive database.”
Broadway World: Audible Announces Sleep & Meditation Focused Audio Collection Featuring Diddy, Nick Jonas, & More
Broadway World: Audible Announces Sleep & Meditation Focused Audio Collection Featuring Diddy, Nick Jonas, & More. “Created in part through a collaboration with Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, Audible is introducing a free collection of new sleep, relaxation and meditation content. Performers such as Diddy and Nick Jonas join sleep, meditation and wellness experts and enthusiasts including Arianna Huffington, Gabby Bernstein, Sara Auster and Jesse Israel to lead these meditations, bedtime stories, sound baths, soundscapes, ASMR sessions and more.”
Untapped New York: Miss the Sounds of NYC During Pandemic? NYPL’s New Spotify Album Does the Trick
Untapped New York: Miss the Sounds of NYC During Pandemic? NYPL’s New Spotify Album Does the Trick. “As many of us sit in our homes in the coronavirus pandemic, we might be starting to forget what New York sounds like. We no longer hear the cacophony of rush hour traffic, the chatter of a crowded restaurant, nor the rumbling of the subway. Today, the New York Public Library dropped a new Spotify album titled Missing Sounds of New York, a collection of audio landscapes evoking the ‘daily urban orchestra’ of New York.”
BetaNews: Plex releases media server app Dash, and Plexamp player for Windows, mobile, macOS and Linux
BetaNews: Plex releases media server app Dash, and Plexamp player for Windows, mobile, macOS and Linux. “If the phrase ‘it really whips the llama’s ass’ means anything to you, you clearly remember the heady days of WinAmp. Now media server and management company Plex has come up with its own take on the classic software. Called — slightly uninspiringly — Plexamp, the player is available for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux. The company has also released a new app for managing Plex media servers: Plex Dash. This is great news for Plex users, but there’s a slight catch in both cases.”
Mashable India: This New Tool Might Be Able To Diagnose COVID-19 Based On Cough, Speech Sounds
Mashable India: This New Tool Might Be Able To Diagnose COVID-19 Based On Cough, Speech Sounds. “Given that our entire world is currently grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, researchers, governments, and organizations are working towards finding solutions that can help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. To that end, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, are working on development of a tool that can diagnose COVID-19 in people based on respiratory, cough, and speech sounds.”
Courthouse News Service: Coronavirus Controls Bring Live Audio Finally to Supreme Court
Courthouse News Service: Coronavirus Controls Bring Live Audio Finally to Supreme Court. “In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the court had delayed two rounds of arguments set for the end of March and April, pushing off some of the most highly anticipated and politically consequential arguments of its term. In the meantime, the court has held remote conferences on Fridays and continued releasing opinions and orders lists while the justices and most court staff works remotely.”
The National: Missing the office? This website helps recreate the sound of your workplace from home
The National: Missing the office? This website helps recreate the sound of your workplace from home. “From ringing phones and printers to the distant hum of background conversation, the website allows you to play white noise to help you feel like you are in the office. There is even the odd sneeze and sniff thrown in, as well as the sound of heels clicking as a virtual colleague walks by.”
