Google Voice Search learns Latin American Spanish, Indonesian, and Malaysian

google voice search
Google Voice Search has just introduced localizations for Latin America, Indonesia and Malaysia, enabling native language search for hundreds of millions of users.

Google's official blog post offers some interesting insights into the process of collecting and analyzing the speech data needed to expand support. Thousands of hours were spent gathering voice samples and choosing key regional accents to analyze, and International Program Manager Linne Ha is clearly very appreciative of the Google users who helped the company complete the expansion. Without an enthusiastic base of users to lend a hand, Google Voice Search's polyglot powers would have been nearly impossible to deliver.

Google Voice Search learns Latin American Spanish, Indonesian, and Malaysian originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/31/google-voice-search-learns-latin-american-spanish-indonesian-a/

ATandT KDDI SYNTAXBRILLIAN UNITED ONLINE MAXIMUS EMS TECHNOLOGIES AVNET

Watch This Behind the Scenes Clip of The Dark Knight's Bat

While you were watching Nolan's third and final Dark Knight flick, did you wonder how in the hell they got the Bat to do all of its hovering, darting and intimidating? Sure you did! More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/BEa_Hy2NeLw/watch-this-behind-the-scenes-clip-of-the-dark-knights-bat

NETWORK APPLIANCE DIEBOLD SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY ACCENTURE ELECTRONICS FOR IMAGING ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS AMKOR TECHNOLOGY

Watch This Behind the Scenes Clip of The Dark Knight's Bat

While you were watching Nolan's third and final Dark Knight flick, did you wonder how in the hell they got the Bat to do all of its hovering, darting and intimidating? Sure you did! More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/BEa_Hy2NeLw/watch-this-behind-the-scenes-clip-of-the-dark-knights-bat

KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY MOTOROLA NVIDIA NIKON VERISIGN LINEAR TECHNOLOGY RF MICRO DEVICES

Toys Injured 262,300 Kids Last Year, and Other Terrifying Toy Facts

Happy holidays, guys: last year, 13 kids died while playing with toys, and over a quarter of a million children were sent to the ER by their own toys. The biggest lesson here? Scooters are time bombs. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Nv9cVTsUqiI/toys-injured-262300-kids-last-year-and-other-terrifying-toy-facts

JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES NOKIA DISCOVER FINANCIAL SERVICES GOOGLE NOVELLUS SYSTEMS SYNNEX QIMONDA

This Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine Just Made the World a Much Better Place

Keep track of your wallet with your iPhone and Phone Halo

Hmmm, this seems to be a crowd-funding project, but it seems Phone Halo has set up their own funding site instead of using one of the established ones.  Anyway, Phone Halo has created a smart device you keep in your wallet to help you keep track of it.  Put the Wallet TrackR in your wallet, pair it with the free iPhone app, and you’ll hear an alarm if you walk away without your wallet.  The app will take a GPS snap showing you where your wallet is.  There’s even a method to help you find your wallet if you’ve misplaced it in your home or to help you locate it when you return to the last location you had it.  You can pledge $29 to get a Wallet TrackR to go in your own wallet (while the early bird special lasts) or as low as $50 for a Smart TrackR plus a Franc Fernandez man’s wallet.  The funding drive ends December 12th, and they have a long way to go to reach their $250,000 goal.

Read the full press release, after the jump, to learn more about the TrackR and the crowd-funding process.

Phone Halo Launches WalletTrackR™ to Prevent the “Lost Wallet”

The Company that helped bring the first successful key tracking solution to market launches a new, crowd-funded project to help eliminate wallet loss.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.,  – Wallet TrackR™ from Phone Halo promises to put an end to one of the most annoying problems experienced by people around the world . . . reaching for their wallet and discovering it’s not there.

Combining the latest in Bluetooth® Smart Low Energy technology with an easy-to-use iPhone app, Wallet TrackR™ helps users keep track of their wallet. The solution consists of the world’s thinnest Bluetooth device, about the size of a credit card, that can be placed in almost any men’s or women’s wallet as well as a companion iPhone app. Whenever the wallet and iPhone become separated, the user is alerted and the app records the GPS coordinates of where the phone or wallet was left.

In a recent study by USA Today, losing a wallet was deemed more stressful than losing one’s luggage, boarding pass, laptop, or tablet.*  “We all know how stressful and time consuming it can be to lose a wallet,” says Chris Herbert, CEO of Phone Halo. “You spend hours cancelling credit cards, getting a new driver’s license, health care cards, membership cards, plus those other irreplaceable items.  That time alone is probably more valuable than any cash left in the wallet.”

The Wallet TrackR™ utilizes the latest technology called Bluetooth Smart or “Bluetooth Low Energy.” Unlike older Bluetooth devices, Bluetooth Smart uses a simple coin cell battery that can last for more than a full year. The product is compatible with the Apple iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 the 3rd generation iPad, and the latest iPod Touch.

Though the Wallet TrackR will fit into most wallets, Phone Halo enlisted Franc Fernandez, designer of the infamous Lady Gaga “Meat Dress,” to design several wallets that are as fashionable as they are functional to accompany the Wallet TrackR device.  “I have always been interested in the evolving partnership between fashion and technology,” says noted fashion designer, Franc Fernandez. “This project represents a great opportunity for me to achieve a balance between cutting edge design and cutting edge technology.”

“Never again will someone have to face the embarrassment of being out with friends or on a date and having to confess they forgot their wallet,” said Phone Halo co-founder, Christian Smith. “What’s exciting here is that we are helping consumers to prevent loss or misplacement in the first place by alerting them before they have stepped away from a valuable item.”

About ‘Crowd-Funding’

Phone Halo has set up a ‘crowd funding’ website to support the Wallet TrackR product. Customers who are interested in purchasing the Wallet TrackR can pledge their support for the project by registering their advance order or ‘pledge’ for one of the devices or for a package that includes the device and a Franc Fernandez designed wallet. Like other crowd-funded projects, the Wallet TrackR™ has set a minimum funding goal. Since the project must meet the funding minimum in order to move into the production phase, ‘backers’ are protected from funding a failed project. The development team at Phone Halo has a proven track record of success, having previously brought other Bluetooth tracking devices to market, including the Cobra Tag (www.CobraTag.com), which launched in 2011 as one of the first devices capable of tracking keys and other essentials from a smartphone.

More information about the new Wallet TrackR™ project can be found at http://www.wallettrackr.com.

*Source: TNS for Intel survey of 2,500 adults. May 9-13, 2012.

Filed in categories: GPS, iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News, Pocket Gear

Tagged: , ,

Keep track of your wallet with your iPhone and Phone Halo originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on November 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm.

Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls

Nortel, once one of the biggest telecoms company in the world but now in the death throes of bankruptcy, has selected Google's $900 million bid for its patent portfolio as the stalking horse bid. This doesn't mean that Google will automatically win Nortel's massive array of telecoms patents, but it does mean that Google is the preferred buyer.

Google, which has a history of lobbying for patent law reform, has been the target of many patent litigation suits. Google's relative infancy means that it has a lot less patents in the vault than big-hitters like Microsoft, Oracle and IBM, and buying Nortel's portfolio of 6,000 patents could provide better protection against patent litigation in the future. It's worth noting that both Apple and RIM have showed interested in the portfolio, too.

Mashable speculates that the patents -- which are nearly all telecoms-related -- will be used to defend against Oracle's attacks on Android's use of Java. We reckon that Google is simply looking to cover its future endeavors in the world of networking. In the absence of patent law reform, and continued threats to net neutrality, owning a bunch of telecoms patents sounds like a very sensible move.

Google bids $900 million for Nortel's patents to protect against litigation trolls originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/google-bids-900-million-for-nortels-patents-to-protect-from-li/

AMKOR TECHNOLOGY INSIGHT ENTERPRISES CANON TIBCO SOFTWARE PLANAR SYSTEMS SES BT GROUP

How Secure is My Password lets you know just that

howsecureismypassword
We've all heard it before; you need to select a lengthy password, one that's hard to guess. Not a dictionary word. And it has to have some capital letters in it too, and some digits, and a symbol or two won't hurt either.

That's a handy set of rules to keep in mind, but How Secure is My Password helps us understand why they're important.

It's basically like a full-screen version of one of those password-strength meters websites sometimes use. But instead of showing you a bar going from "weak" to "strong", it shows you an estimation of how long your password would take to crack. That's a much more visceral way to understand why your password is strong.

For example, when I entered "rabbit", it came back with "your password is one of the 500 most common passwords. It could be cracked almost instantly". "rabbit5" would take two hours, "$rabbit5" would take 38 days, and "$rabbitZ5" would take 237 years. It's quite enlightening to see what a difference three simple characters can make.

How Secure is My Password lets you know just that originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 05 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/05/how-secure-is-my-password-lets-you-know-just-that/

COMCAST HEWLETT PACKARD CO TIBCO SOFTWARE ACER SYBASE TECHNITROL NII HOLDINGS

Nexus device factory images updated to Android 4.2.1 (JOP40D)

Nexus factory images

Just a quick heads up that, as promised, the factory images for the Nexus 4, and Nexus 7 have been updated, should you need to get back to stock. Nice and easy. If you notice that there's no updated image for the Nexus 10, you've got a good eye. Google's JBQ in the Android Building Group notes that there was a problem with the JOP40C image (which has since been fixed). So hang tight. More on that here.

Otherwise, get your download on should you need to.

Download: Nexus factory images

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/QGhjsOI9Qnw/story01.htm

INTERNATIONAL GAME TECHNOLOGY ZIONS BAN SYNOPSYS SILICON LABORATORIES DELL COSMOTE MOBILE TELECOM ELPIDA MEMORY

Nuclear Power Could Blast Humans Into Deep Space

A team of researchers, including engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, this week reported their successful demonstration of a new concept that could provide reliable nuclear power for space exploration. The technology is still years away from the warp drive of Star Trek, but it could provide a means of propulsion for space travel beyond the moon. The research team demonstrated the first use of a heat pipe to cool a small nuclear reactor and power a Stirling engine at the Nevada National Security Site's Device Assembly Facility.

Source: http://ectnews.com.feedsportal.com/c/34520/f/632000/s/2612b274/l/0L0Stechnewsworld0N0Crsstory0C766990Bhtml/story01.htm

L1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES RESEARCH IN MOTION YAHOO JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES NOKIA