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Posts tagged "getting"

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YouTube video translation is getting an AI-powered dubbing tool upgrade
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YouTube is going to help its creators reach an international audience as the platform plans on introducing a new AI-powered dubbing tool for translating videos into other languages.

Announced at VidCon 2023, the goal of this latest endeavor is to provide a quick and easy way for creators to translate “at no cost” their content into languages they don’t speak. This can help out smaller channels as they may not have the resources to hire a human translator. To make this all possible, Amjad Hanif, vice president of Creator Products at YouTube, revealed the tool will utilize the Google-created Aloud plus the platform will be bringing over the team behind the AI from Area 120, a division of the parent company that frequently works on experimental tech.

Easy translation

The way the translation system works, according to the official Aloud website, is the AI will first transcribe a video into a script. You then edit the transcription to get rid of any errors, make clarifications, or highlight text “where timing is critical.” From there, you give the edited script back to Aloud where it will automatically translate your video into the language of your choice. Once done, you can publish the newly dubbed content by uploading any new audio tracks onto their original video.

A Google representative told us “creators do not have to [actually] understand any of the languages that they are dubbing into.” Aloud will handle all of the heavy lifting surrounding complex tasks like “translation, timing, and speech synthesis.” Again, all you have to do is double-check the transcription. 

Future changes

It’s unknown when the Aloud update will launch. However, YouTube is already working on expanding the AI beyond what it’s currently possible. Right now, Aloud can only translate English content to either Spanish or Portuguese. But there are plans to expand into other languages from Hindi to Indonesian plus support for different dialects.

Later down the line, the platform will introduce a variety of features such as “voice preservation, better emotion transfer, and even lip reanimation” to improve enunciation. Additionally, YouTube is going to build in some safeguards ensuring only the creators can “dub their own content”.

The same Google representative from earlier also told us the platform is testing the Aloud AI with “hundreds of [YouTube] creators” with plans to add more over time. As of June 2023, over 10,000 videos have been dubbed in over 70 languages. 

You can join the early access program by filling out the official Google Docs form. If you want to know what an Aloud dub sounds like, go watch the channel trailer for the Amoeba Sisters channel on YouTube. Click the gear icon, go to Audio Track, then select Spanish. The robotic voice you’ll hear is what the AI will create. 

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Microsoft Outlook is getting an AI upgrade that will make the Mail and Calendar apps redundant
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Microsoft plans to shut down its Mail and Calendar apps and merge the two into an updated Outlook for Windows, and use this as an opportunity to introduce more artificial intelligence features.

In a blog post from Microsoft earlier this month, the company noted that Windows 11 devices that will be shipped next year will include the new Outlook for Windows as the default mailbox app. The updated Outlook will include both mail and calendar tools that will eliminate the need for the respective Mail and Calendar apps: so you’ll just use the newer Outlook instead.

The Register notes that the Mail and Calendar apps will still be available to download through the Microsoft Store up to the end of 2024, but the move doesn’t seem to be a popular decision going by reactions online – and tweet from a systems engineer and Office 365 specialist Michael Reiners suggests that Microsoft might be rethinking the plan, or at least the timing.

The tweet below shows a screenshot of an email or memo from Microsoft that says “We are reevaluating the timing and implementation of this change and will provide updated information shortly.”

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It's unclear why the tech giant is hesitant to roll out these changes, and the company has not responded to a request for comment from the Register as of yet.

Microsoft is giving users a chance to look at the latest Outlook for Windows. If you’d like to give it a try head over to the Mail and Calendar app and hit the 'Try the new Outlook' toggle. Merging the mail and Calendar Capabilities into Outlook is part of Microsoft’s larger One Outlook plan laid out in 2020 to create a single Outlook for PCs, Macs, and the web.

These changes present an opportunity for Microsoft to implement AI into Outlook, and hopefully streamline everyday tasks within mail and calendar capabilities, in a similar way to how Google has introduced Bard and generative AI into the Google Workspace.

Whether you're for AI integration into your daily workspace, it seems like that is the direction companies like Microsoft and Google are adamant to head towards. It would be interesting to see exactly how Microsoft plans to introduce artificial intelligence to declutter and improve your task management. 

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Google Maps Immersive View just keeps getting better
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Google Maps’ best feature, Immersive View, just got a whole lot better. You can now explore 3D maps of four new cities and over 500 new landmarks thanks to Google’s AI.

Immersive View is Google Maps’ souped-up 3D map, and it’s a solid free tool for helping to plan trips. Using AI, Google has fused billions of images together to create fairly realistic 3D maps of cities (including the newly released Amsterdam, Dublin, Florence, and Venice) and hundreds of landmarks (such as Sydney Harbour Bridge and Boston’s Faneuil Hall).

While you're soaring over these virtual locations Google Maps will highlight nearby locations such as cafes, restaurants and hotels. This more immersive perspective provides an easy-to-understand sense of size and scale compared to using regular Google Maps. You can even go inside some locations, using a Google AI called NeRF – this allows you to peek into select restaurants and cafes before you book online.

We particularly like Immersive View’s timeline tool. This feature will show you the expected weather – complete with virtual clouds, sun, or rain – and how busy you should expect the destination to be over the following days. Google Maps has always had this data, but Immersive View makes it a lot less tedious to scan through it to find the optimal times to visit particular locations on your trip.

The new landmarks and cities should be rolling out from today to Google Maps users on Android and iOS.

More Maps updates on the way 

Immersive View isn’t the only Google Maps feature getting an update.

Glanceable directions will be rolling out globally on iOS and Android later this month. Once you opt in to the service (Google doesn’t explain how you'll do this, but it’ll likely appear as a popup once the update goes live, and later will be found in your settings), you just need to call up directions and start walking, cycling, or driving to your destination – without hitting Start for in-depth directions or Live View for AR navigation.

Google Maps Glanceable Directions in action, your icon moves along the route, takes a detour and almsot a wrong turn before correcting it and arriving at the destination.

(Image credit: Google Maps)

As you move, your location marker will travel with you, and your ETA will update in real time, and you can even swap to a different route if you decide to travel a slower but more scenic way. Google says this tool is aimed at people who are familiar with where they’re going; they don’t need constant callouts saying ‘Turn here’, they just need to occasionally glance at their phone to make sure they’re still headed in the right direction. 

Next month, Google Maps users on desktop should look out for an update to Recents. Previously, this feature would show you the most recent destinations you’ve looked up in your current Google Maps session, but when you closed the Window this info would be lost. The upcoming update will enable you to see your recently visited locations from previous sessions, which should make it much easier to research potential places to visit on your next trip.

You can research hotels, landmarks, and other attractions across multiple sessions, then make a custom route or saved list when you've decided where you'd like to go. Plus, as you whittle down places to visit, you can remove them from your Recents list so that they aren’t cluttering up the list.

Looking for more ways to use Google Maps? Check out this list of 10 things you might not know Google Maps can do.

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Windows 11 Subsystem for Android is finally getting a much-needed update
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Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA), which has been around since 2022, will finally be able to access Windows 11 folders like Documents and Pictures in an upcoming update.

The concept behind WSA is that you can run Android apps in Windows natively but, in practice, it’s rather counterintuitive thanks to the fact that you can’t easily download picture or video files from the PC to an Android social media app, or vice versa. But now, thanks to a new update coming first to the Windows Insider preview program, before rolling out to all users in a future Windows 11 update, WSA will be able to access Documents and Pictures through file sharing with the OS.

File Sharing, according to Liliputing, will be enabled by default once the update drops, but you can turn it off via the WSA Settings app. Access to those folders is limited, as apps will need to request permission before accessing folders for security reasons. 

There’s also the fact that the feature doesn’t have full access to every folder in your PC, only the ones tied to a user profile like Documents, Pictures, Videos, and Downloads. That means the new File Sharing feature for WSA doesn’t have access to these files:

  • Windows system folders like Program Files
  • External drives
  • Other users’ folders
  • Hidden files or folders
  • Executable files (like .exe files)

Why use Windows 11 Subsystem for Android? 

Before Windows 11 Subsystem for Android, there was Windows Subsystem for Linux, which became publicly available in November 2022. According to Microsoft, this allowed for developers to use “their favorite laptop for programming to run a GNU/Linux environment without the overheads of a traditional virtual machine or dualboot setup.”

But while it makes sense for there to be a subsystem for one computer operating system to run on a different one, running Android on PC seems a bit pointless. Why would a user want to run an Android app on their Windows PC, when they can simply use the more fleshed-out desktop version instead?

File sharing will probably be the only reason for regular users to actually make use of WSA, as being able to share picture and video files between phone and PC is an incredibly useful feature. Otherwise, there isn’t a real purpose for anyone but developers to need this program.

Maybe more updates like File Sharing will convince me otherwise but for now, WSA feels like a feature with only a narrow focus — for devs to test out Android apps in Windows without having to use an emulator.

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WhatsApp is getting a new Twitter-style feed that it really doesn’t need
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WhatsApp’s newest feature brings a different vibe to the world’s most popular messaging app, and likely not for the better. It's called Channels, and it's specifically for more-than-necessary broadcasts rather than conversations.

Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp, calls it “a private way to follow what matters” and uses local sports updates as an example of how you might use it. Sound familiar?

Basically, Channels are a Twitter feed. The WhatsApp team has probably taken notice of all the Twitter refugees searching for a new place to share their essential updates, and considers Channels as a quick-fix replacement. This makes sense in a way, as it’s a familiar setup on an app a lot of people use on a daily basis.

Channels act as a creator tool and its a place to “send texts, photos, videos stickers and polls” according to a WhatsApp blog post. The company has plans to build payment and monetization services into the feature. You’ll be able to find channels by searching for them in WhatsApp – as you would on Twitter – or browsing a newly-created directory and seeing updates from the channels you follow in the ‘Status’ section of the app.

The team explains in the blog post that privacy is key to the experience, which is why channel admin information won’t be shared and the app will only store 30 days' worth of channel history. Channel admins can even block screenshots and the sharing of messages or content, keeping what is in the channel private and contained.

The channels won’t be end-to-end encrypted (where only the users communicating can read the messages). Instead, they’re treated more like your messages with businesses on WhatsApp, though Meta does say it’s thinking about ways to encrypt some channels over time. This would be a key selling point of Channels if WhatsApp is looking to tempt brands, government agencies and others looking to move over to the app.

If it's not broken…

The update actually makes sense when you think about it, bringing important information to people like air quality updates, train issues and weather alerts seems a lot more natural on WhatsApp than mashed together with other things like on Twitter. You’d have to scroll through a lot of unnecessary fodder on Twitter before finding an important announcement.

However, there is a joy in using WhatsApp that comes with knowing it’s arguably the most simple and straightforward social media app out there. In the last few months WhatsApp has been dishing out new features that bring it closer to other apps you may have on your phone, like adding usernames to its Android app and introducing polls. In Brazil, you can actually use WhatsApp to shop and pay for things, and in general, it seems like Meta is bloating the messaging app with Facebook-lite features.

Channels won’t come to WhatsApp for a while though, and like most WhatsApp features, it will start small and build up in the coming months. For now, the company is planning to launch Channels with “leading global organizations and select organizations in Colombia and Singapore”, and will roll out elsewhere in the coming months.

WhatsApp has always been a messaging app before anything else, and billions of people use it every day to keep in touch with friends and family, but as it grows and looks to compete and become this all-in-one super app, we hope it does not lose sight of why it’s so popular. 

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There’s a new Gmail verification scam; here’s how to avoid getting caught up in it
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There’s a new Gmail scam making the rounds online as bad actors are taking advantage of the service’s recently launched verification system. 

Back at the beginning of May, Google introduced blue checkmark verification in order to combat internet scams like phishing attacks. Companies and organizations can apply to the program to verify their identity, and upon approval, Gmail will display the aforementioned blue checkmark next to the brand logo. What was supposed to be a way to protect people is instead, in some instances, being used to go after them. Cybersecurity engineer Chris Plummer posted on Twitter an image of a spoofed email claiming to officially be from UPS. The scammer apparently somehow got past Google’s own safeguards.

Bug exploit

Identifying the fake email was easy enough to do. Plummer shows the header sporting an email address consisting of mostly random letters and numbers ending in a UPS URL. However, hovering over the checkmark displays a window stating the message is coming from a legitimate source.

It’s unknown how the bad actor got around the security checks. Plummer claims there’s a bug in Gmail that scammers are exploiting to trick the platform’s “authoritative stamp of approval”. From there, the bad actors hop through multiple domains before zeroing in on their target.

Initially, when he reported the problem to Google, the company reportedly hand-waved it away saying the system was working as intended. But in the days since Plummer’s discovery, the tech giant made an about-face and announced it is currently working on a fix.

How to not get scammed

Since we don’t know when the patch will roll out, it makes sense to protect yourself until then. TechRadar has a couple of guides on how to avoid online phishing scams and how to protect your inbox. We strongly recommend reading both to get a full understanding, but here are some pieces of advice to get you started.

First, double-check the header. If you see a bunch of random letters, numbers, and symbols in the email address, that’s your first clue that something is fishy.

Secondly, double-check the spelling in the header. Some scammers will replace certain characters with a lookalike to trick people. For example, the letter “O” will be replaced with the number “0” or the capital “I” with a lowercase “l” (that's an “L”). Gmail’s default font can make this tough to discern. 

Be wary of any emails urging you to share your financial information, whether updating your account details or a refund offer you didn’t ask for. 

Of course, don’t click on any links or attachments you don’t recognize.

Also, be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best identity theft protection apps for June 2023 to better safeguard your personal details. 

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Google Docs is getting a whole lot smarter – and collapsable?
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In its eternal struggle to replicate features that Microsoft 365 and even Office has had for aeons, Google Docs is getting – make sure you’re sitting down – collapsible headings.

This is good – it’ll keep documents from feeling cluttered or unruly, we’re just at a loss as to why it’s taken until 2023 for this to happen.

The announcement, posted on the Google Workspace updates blog, revealed that the change will arrive shortly for Google Workspace and Personal users but, as tends to happen to us, we found that the feature isn’t yet available for us specifically.

 Making a word processor fit for purpose

We’re not being contrarian for clicks when we assert that Google software has always been behind the times – whether it’s deciding to chase the AI zeitgeist after Microsoft finds success in that space or still lacking reorderable headings in the document outline, meaning I much prefer to first draft long-form work in Microsoft Word.

And it is a shame that Google is treating artificial intelligence (which, as we’re being urged to understand at the moment, is simply a form of machine learning) as the be all and end all. 

The best way to enhance a productivity tool isn’t to throw in features that trade on buzzwords and promises of a personal assistant to do your work for you. Less ambitious features, unconcerned with grabbing headlines but which are altogether more important at making work bearable.

Google is obviously going for a little from column A and and a little for column B with this approach. Its happy medium is something like the “smart chips” across Google Workspace, allowing documents to contain links to other ones, files, people, or events, making them better at centralising information.

The “smart chips” are good, in that “smart” here means “convenient” rather than “literally sentient”. I feel like I’m on a theme here,  having written about the ills of AI in office software relatively recently, but I might like to revise what I wrote there.

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> This Google Docs update will finally help get your work in the right order

> Google Docs is getting its own search bar to solve all your most pressing problems

> We’ve also listed the best free word processors right now

It’s not so much that I need to be dazzled by innovation to keep me conscious, I just need to be able to get through the day without wanting to throw my cloud-driven office software out of the window.

So, Google, take note: make it easy to export images from Docs without making me download a zipped .html file of the whole document, do the reorderable outline thing, and just generally step back in time to 2003. That all sounds reasonable.

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Google Maps is getting a better Immersive View to help you plan trips
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Google Maps is getting a big boost to its impressive Immersive View Mode to help you plan routes and trips using its bird's-eye view.

Announced at Google I/O 2023, which you can follow at our Google I/O 2023 liveblog, Google Maps Immersive View for routes will bring you a 3D view of your planned journey – for example, a bike ride or drive. This will give you a clearer real-world view of the neighborhoods you're going through, plus other information like traffic, air quality, temperature and more.

This all sounds a lot more useful than Google Maps' traditional overhead view, and could also be a very helpful tool for planning photography trips. But given that many of us are still waiting for the first version of Immersive View to roll out, it may be a while before you can start using it to plan trips.

A Google Maps Immersive View map showing a city

(Image credit: Google)

Google says it will begin rolling the feature out for a few cities this summer (in other words, between now and August), and will eventually cover 15 cities “by the end of the year”. These will include Los Angeles, New York, Miami, London, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Tokyo, Seattle, and Venice.

We've previously called Google Maps Immersive View a “next-gen Street View”. That's because it uses a combination of Street View and aerial imagery to give you digital recreations of cities in Google Maps, complete with real-time information. 

A Google Maps Immersive View map showing a city

(Image credit: Google)

The fact that this is all coming to route planning, rather than just tourist attractions in major cities, is great news, and should make piecing together journey plans a lot more intuitive. 

Combine this with Indoor Live View, a separate feature that displays AR arrows over your real-world view, and Maps will soon become an even bigger essential for tourists and the perennially lost. 

But Apple Maps is also becoming a stronger rival thanks to features like Flyover view, and we'll want to see Immersive View roll out much quicker than it has done so far before declaring a Street View-sized success.

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Google Workspace doesn’t really need AI, but you’re getting it anyway
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Google has followed the herd and announced a host of new artificial intelligence (AI) expansion for its  is coming to its collaboration tool for enterprise.

The tech giant announced the new Google Workspace feature set, which includes the ability to draft new content and refine existing work in Google Docs , and gives Google Slides the opportunity to generate images from text prompts. 

However given that Microsoft has had their finger in this pie since March 2023, and has just announced a similar text-to-image tool for PowerPoint, it’s hard for us to get especially excited about any of this – for now. 

Google Slides Duet AI Workspace

(Image credit: Google)

Google’s collaborative AI

Everyone’s at it, which is good, I suppose – you’re not beholden to one provider if you’re dying to use the latest tech gimmick. I just wish tech companies remembered that they’re supposed to have original ideas.

But in lieu of that, have this – Google Sheets will now – yawn – analyze and provide actionable insights into your data, with automated data classification and the creation of custom plans. 

Google Sheets io ai duet

(Image credit: Google)

At the center of this is – yep – AI that can understand the context of your data beyond just the content of a cell. A new “help me organize” function will, even though you’re an adult, generate a comprehensive to-do list based on the homework you need your mum’s help with.

Docs won’t just do your work for you (including grammatically correct, “professional-grade” in French, Spanish, Japanese and “more”) – it’ll use its proprietary “smart chip” technology to help personalize it, so now you can, say, entice bright, inspired job applicants into your web until you finally break it to them gently that the machines are running the place.

Read more

> Google reveals its AI-powered security rival to Microsoft Security Copilot

> Google wants to make an AI-powered GitHub competitor

> We’ve also listed the best AI tools right now

Places like gig economy bandwagoner Lyft, that wrote, or had a computer write, without any sense of irony, that “[Lyft] is excited [!] to test out the new generative Workplace experiences [!!]”.

Google deigns to assure us that it continues to believe in the “ingenuity of real people”, characterizing its AI’s work as “suggestions”. It’s all a bit “Gizmo has gone to live on a farm with her other dog friends” to me, but at least, if you’re an IT admin, you’re being given the policy power to make the hurting stop.

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Sick of hearing about ChatGPT in Bing? Too bad: Microsoft is just getting started
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On Thursday, March 16, Microsoft is planning to reveal more of its grand scheme for implementing AI chatbot ChatGPT’s features into yet more aspects of our lives – specifically, how the tech firm has big plans to “reinvent productivity with AI”.

Besides being utterly meaningly corporate marketing jargon, this notion of ‘reinventing productivity’ is concerning at best, especially since we don’t know what it actually entails yet. Speculation is rife that Microsoft plans to integrate ChatGPT into the Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) software suite, along with the Dynamics 365 suite for enterprise use.

This comes hot on the heels of Microsoft shoving the chatbot into almost everything it owns. Starting out with the integration of ChatGPT into Bing and following rapidly with AI-powered additions to Skype and the Windows 11 taskbar, Microsoft has been going hard when it comes to AI in its software.

We had already speculated about the ways in which ChatGPT could transform Microsoft’s consumer software suite, so it’s not like this is a huge surprise. However, I’m worried about the whole prospect; Microsoft is rushing into its AI implementation plan, and it’s going to cause more problems than it solves.

The AI arms race

Microsoft’s apparent desire to shoehorn AI features into yet more of its products is likely a response to competitor Salesforce’s own moves in partnering up with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to bring the chatbot to Slack (as well as Snapchat introducing its own AI chatbot) This sort of reactionary decisionmaking is rarely a wise move, especially when it involves AI.

ChatGPT has already proven itself to be, well, problematic. Whether it’s being used to commit cybercrime or create spurious photography competition entries, AI poses some very serious risks. Many of these problems are caused by human abuse of AI software, but tools like ChatGPT have their own failings too.

We’re witnessing a real-time arms race to cram AI tech into every aspect of our lives, and I wouldn’t trust Microsoft (or any huge tech company, like Google or Meta) to be the harbingers of this chatbot renaissance. Right now, Microsoft is demonstrating a lack of caution when it comes to ChatGPT and AI in general, especially since it’s a space yet to see serious regulation from major governments.

I will admit that AI coming to the 365 suite is actually a much less horrible idea than, say, letting ChatGPT make video content. The ability to ask ChatGPT something simple like ‘add some animations to my PowerPoint presentation’ or ‘reformat this text document as a letter’ is both useful and relatively non-threatening – though the potential for Microsoft Word to simply write content for you is a bit concerning, especially for the academic space.

I’m not saying that ChatGPT being added to these tools is going to ruin our lives, but it has issues – and I’m definitely not convinced that Microsoft is taking all the right precautions here. This is a situation where caution will be rewarded; Google isn’t letting people get up close and personal with its new AI just yet, and Microsoft themselves had to limit the Bing chatbots replies after a whole load of weirdness from the AI. Charging ahead with more AI tools right now? Not a good look.

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