The Pocket Miku is a tiny synthesizer that turns its key presses (or audio input) into Hatsune Miku’s voice. For those of you unfamiliar, Miku is a Vocaloid software voicebank created by Crypton Future Media and its official anthropomorphic mascot, a Japanese idol with long, turquoise hair. And now I can make songs with her! I guess I can go ahead and add Music Producer to my résumé.
In the video below, YouTuber David Hilowitz Music actually does a fantastic job using the synthesizer to create a song with Miku on vocals. I probably don’t have the necessary musical talent to do the same and suspect my song would end up sounding like Miku yelling for me to take her batteries out.
If you’re seriously interested, some Pocket Mikus are available on eBay, but they’re going for around $400, so I guess you’ll have to be SERIOUSLY interested to buy one. Me? I’m not really that serious about anything besides what’s for dessert. I’m hoping for a berry crumble with ice cream!
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft got its first view of the Earth-Moon system one year after launching from its home planet to explore a distant swarm of asteroids. The spacecraft captured beautiful, and somewhat daunting, images of Earth and its natural satellite as it whizzed past for a gravitational assist.
Elon Musk has tweeted a video clip of him entering the Twitter San Francisco headquarters carrying a kitchen sink. “Let that sink in,” he captioned. Turns out he may have also talked to staff members and denied reports that he’s going let most of them go after he officially takes over as company owner, possibly on Friday. According to Bloomberg, he told Twitter’s employees that he doesn’t have plans to axe 75 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 workers like previously reported by The Washington Post.
Musk is still expected to order layoffs. During a Twitter Town Hall meeting in June, he said he didn’t know why low-performing workers should remain employed. But job cuts were going to happen even if Musk completely backed out of purchasing the website anyway. Based on internal documents obtained by The Post, current company leadership was planning a 25 percent workforce reduction, which translates to 1,900 people losing their jobs. Executives were also planning major infrastructure cuts and data center closures.
Musk’s Twitter purchase is on track to close by Friday, but it was in limbo for a long while. The executive had wanted to back out of his $44 billion purchase, accusing the company of withholding data that would give him a clearer picture of how many bots and fake accounts are on the website. Twitter, in turn, sued Musk and accused him of wrongfully breaking the agreement. Earlier this month, though, Musk decided to go ahead with the deal, and Twitter agreed with his proposal before their case could go to trial.
We can play our music whenever, wherever we want these days, all thanks to apps like Spotify. These are the awesome Spotify features that you’re missing out on.
It took several months, but Snap’s promised video editing suite is finally available. The social network is now rolling out “Director Mode” to all Snapchat users on Android and iOS. As teased in April, the feature lets creators add polish to their Snaps with virtual green screens, camera speed changes and quick editing for multiple clips.
You can also use the BeReal-style Dual Camera functionality within this mode, although it’s currently limited to iOS users. Android users will have “limited” access to two-camera recording in the weeks ahead. Dual Camera is also available through the regular Snapchat cam.
Director Mode will be useful for influencers who want to produce videos for Spotlight, Snapchat’s home for TikTok-like short videos. It may be particularly helpful for verified users (Snap Stars in company lingo) who want more of the sheen they apply to all their online content.
Snap isn’t alone in chasing after TikTok and similar rivals. Instagram has been testing a Candid Challenges feature that mimics BeReal, and it’s no secret that social media heavyweights have routinely lifted elements from each other in a bid to remain competitive — to the point where they’ve occasionally had to walk back their plans after mimicking designs too closely. Like it or not, social networks are harmonizing to the point where differences may only be subtle.
Apple has given its most direct confirmation yet that a USB-C-equipped iPhone will happen, now that the European Union is mandating that all phones sold in its member countries use the connector if they have a physical charger. When asked by The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern if the company would replace Lightning, Apple’s senior vp of worldwide marketing, Greg Joswiak, answered by saying: “Obviously, we’ll have to comply; we have no choice.
Stern brought the law up during a talk with Joswiak and software VP Craig Federighi at the WSJ’s Tech Live conference and followed up by asking when we can expect to see USB-C on an iPhone. Joswiak replied, “the Europeans are the ones dictating timing for European customers.” Currently, the law dictates that “all mobile phones and tablets” will have to use USB-C by “autumn 2024.” Joswiak refused to answer whether the company would include the connector on phones sold outside the EU.
But he made it abundantly clear that Apple isn’t happy about being legally coerced into making the switch. Before acknowledging that the company must comply with the law, Joswiak went into a long explanation about how Apple has historically preferred to go its own way and trust its engineers rather than be forced into adopting hardware standards by lawmakers. He cited the examples of Micro USB and hearing aid compliance as situations where Apple has been pushed to meet ill-considered requirements.
He also suggested that charging bricks with detachable cables have mostly solved the issue of standardization and claimed that switching the iPhone from Lightning to USB-C would cause lots of e-waste. (Personally, I don’t find this argument compelling; I have to replace most of my Lightning cables every few years anyways, at around the same cadence I buy new phones because they wear out or get chewed on by cats.)
Still, it’s telling what didn’t come up: a portless iPhone that relies solely on wireless charging, something that would theoretically be allowed. Joswiak didn’t say that the company is weighing its options or mention discussing ways to avoid putting a USB-C port on the iPhone. Instead, we got a resigned, slightly winding answer that lead to what seems like an inevitable conclusion: USB-C is the future port for connecting to and charging your iPhone.
Nearly 140 rockets have flown to space this year, with payloads destined for all sorts of destinations. The vast majority of payloads are deposited into Earth or Earth-related orbits, of which many types exist. Here’s a guide to the various celestial circuits that host human technology, from ones close to home to…
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