Posted 11/19/2009 at 08:56:35pm

Google is striving to make YouTube friendlier for deaf and hard of hearing people. It today announced the launch of machine-generated automatic captions. But it has chosen to limit the technology to a few YouTube channels for now.

The auto-cap feature has been built on top of the YouTube caption system, and uses the same speech-to-text technology as Google Voice. Though the auto-cap feature is only meant to work with English-language speech, it is possible to automatically translate these automatically-generated captions to 51 different languages.

Another new feature has been added to YouTube in the form of "automatic caption timing." Captions are created using the transcript (text file) uploaded by the user. Google's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology helps ensure that each word hits precisely the right mark on the timeline, making it easier for users to manually create captions.

"Each of these features has had great personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, but also because I'm deaf. Today, I'm in Washington, D.C. to announce what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: machine-generated automatic captions," Google engineer Ken Harrenstien wrote in a post on the Official Google Blog.

Posted 11/19/2009 at 06:09:59pm

Windows 7 is the best PC operating system ever, according to Steve Ballmer. "We've already sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable time frame," an exultant Ballmer informed shareholders at a meeting on Thursday.

Its latest operating system has helped the company obscure the spectre of Vista's failure. A couple of NPD reports published during the past fortnight indicate that Windows 7 has so far surpassed Vista in terms of sales, revenue, and adoption rate.

One shareholder apparently became the face of moderation for a bit during the meeting when he questioned Ballmer about Apple's huge popularity with the younger generation. Ballmer admitted that there is some room for improvement. But on the whole, he seemed satisfied with the fact that Windows is by far the most popular OS in the world.

Posted 11/18/2009 at 09:16:45pm

Asus will soon be bringing NVIDIA’s 3D Vision technology to notebooks in the form of the Asus G51J 3D. NVIDIA and Asus will be showcasing the G51J 3D at Pepcom’s Wine, Dine & Demo media event on Nov 19th in New York. The notebook will have a 120Hz 3D Vision-capable display fitted directly into its chassis.

The list of 3D Vision-compatible games is growing continuously. It currently boasts over 400 titles, including Resident Evil 5, Borderlands, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and Star Trek D-A-C. All 3D Vision-capable notebooks will ship with 3D Vision active-shutter glasses.

“NVIDIA and ASUS have a passion for gaming and cutting-edge technology, and this is another example of how great companies working together can deliver awesome new platforms to our combined customers,” said Asustek’s PC Wang. The G51J 3D will hit the market next month.

Posted 11/18/2009 at 07:54:36pm

Microsoft today announced the (official) launch of the Office 2010 beta. The official launch has come a week after the beta was leaked onto torrent sites. Microsoft first announced the beta on its website and Kurt DelBene, Office unit senior vice president at Microsoft, later confirmed the launch at the ongoing Professional Developers Conference (PDC). The beta can be downloaded from the official Office 2010 website.

The beta of Office Mobile 2010 is also now available from the Windows Mobile Marketplace. However, it is only meant for Windows Mobile 6.5. The consumer version of Office Web Apps – the online version of Office - is yet to bid adieu to the technical preview stage, however, the enterprise version has safely reached beta.

Posted 11/18/2009 at 06:21:26pm

Many online commenters try and compensate for their lack of insight into the subject at hand by summoning their ability to enliven even the most vapid discussion with a highly stimulating cocktail of profanities. But not everyone can fully relish this amazing ability as not everyone possesses it. The practitioners of this colorful art are often persecuted by the prim archpriests of insipid internet discussions.

An anonymous commenter paid with his job for what was an earnest attempt to breathe some life into a discussion on a newspaper’s site. Last Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a blog post titled “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?” One anonymous user replied with “a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy.” But his terse reply was deleted within one minute of being posted (probably for being way too brief). The obdurate commenter returned to repost his single-word comment, only to have it deleted once again.

But the paper’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum, who had posted the concerned article, managed to track down the anonymous poster using the WordPress e-mail alert that accompanies every comment. The alert included the commenter's IP address, which was found to be from a local school.

“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot,” Greenbaum wrote in a blog post on Monday. Was it right on the paper’s part to pursue an anonymous commenter? If yes, then what is the point of allowing anonymous comments? Have your say without the fear of getting fired.

Posted 11/17/2009 at 07:12:28pm

Microsoft uses the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) as a platform to showcase new technology and make some key announcements. This year is no different. Today, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie tried to woo those attending his opening keynote speech at the ongoing PDC09 with the promise of making Internet Explorer 9 the "best Internet browser without compromise.”

Microsoft VP Steven Sinofsky is expected to shed more light on the company’s plans vis-à-vis IE9 when he delivers tomorrow’s keynote speech. According to Cnet, Microsoft will not be previewing IE9 at PDC. It also ruled out the possibility of Microsoft switching its browser to the WebKit engine.