Hasta La Gadget!

Now that Chromium has pledged its allegiance to Google’s new Blink rendering engine, Webkit is set to have the now-unnecessary Chrome-specific code stripped from it. Apple Webkit developer Geoffrey Garen kicked off a conversation on the project’s mailing list about removing the Mountain View-centric cruft, saying that it would streamline things and hopefully “make development easier and more coherent for everyone.” Garen adds that Googlers Adam Barth and Eric Seidel have already offered to pitch in with the clean up, but he asks that devs who will continue using the engine tidy things up as well. Over the next few weeks, code in Webkit related to the search giant’s browser, such as the V8 JavaScript engine, will be put up on the chopping block. With a Blink-infused Chrome slated to arrive in roughly 10 weeks, these changes shouldn’t mean much for the average web surfer, save for Webkit being a bit trimmer under the hood.

Filed under: Misc, Internet, Software, Apple, Google

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Via: Slashdot

Source: Webkit Developer Mailing List

Every week, a new and interesting human being tackles our decidedly geeky take on the Proustian Q&A. This is the Engadget Questionnaire.

In the latest installment of our weekly bout of answers, the owner and CVO of V-Moda Val Kolton reminisces about rotary dials, programming on the TI-99 and tethering for free burritos. All of the responses await your perusal on the reverse side of the jump.

Filed under: Misc

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It’s far from the first Arduino-based mod we’ve seen for a guitar, but this one from David Neevel of the Wieden + Kennedy ad agency may well be the most unique. Apparently tired of having to drop his guitar and pick up a keyboard every time he wanted to send an email, he decided to make the guitar the keyboard, and replace the dull drone of keystrokes with an extended solo. As you might expect, the project comes with a fairly high degree of difficulty, but those interested in trying their hand can find the basics to get started at the source link below, and get a look at what’s possible in the video after the break. You’re on your own with the moustache.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: W + K Blog

Now that the SEC has given companies its blessing to share business data over social media, Bloomberg has begun to pull live Twitter feeds into its market terminals, known as the Bloomberg Professional service. According to the firm, that makes it the first financial information platform to integrate real-time tweets into investment workflows. Within the service, tweets are classified by company, asset class, people and topics, and stock buffs can even search messages, create filters and set alerts to notify them when a certain subject gets a flurry of mentions. The outfit hopes the inclusion of 140-character missives will let financial-minded folks keep their fingers on the market’s pulse without switching to another system (read: being distracted by Tweetdeck) to get the big picture. Hit the jump for the full skinny in the press release.

[Image credit: Jared Keller, Twitter]

Filed under: Misc

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Via: AllThingsD

Source: Bloomberg

We’ve come a long way since an IBM 704 first croaked its way through Daisy Bell. Now we’ve got Siri copping an attitude when we ask a stupid question and Google Now feeding information in an incredibly realistic sounding voice. AT&T has its own initiative, dubbed Natural Voices. At this morning’s Foundry event, one demo involved using the voice synthesis engine to read a children’s book — specifically Goldilocks and the Three Bears. This isn’t just another text-to-speech demo though, StorEbook uses the impressive and appropriately named library of sampled phonemes to speak in unique, realistic voices for each character. What’s more, from the library of different voices (of which there are dozens), the web-based app chooses the most appropriate voice automatically, based on character traits input by the developer, Taniya Mishra.

In the future, she envisions a system smart enough to analyze the text of a story and pick out the salient traits on its own, then assign a voice to that character. Or even use algorithms to modify vocal features to convey emotion or age a character. Perhaps the most ambitious idea is to create personalized voices. A child could then have a story read to him or her, virtually, by a parent or grandparent. A mother would need to create a database of her voice first, by reading a few hundred sentences. Though, this wouldn’t mean sitting down and reading through 100 sample sentences in one shot. Theoretically the necessary data could be collected overtime through recorded voice searches, commands or conversations (if you’re willing to accept something that intrusive and creepy). There are still some rough edges, and no one is going to mistake Natural Voices for actual natural voices. But Mishra’s goals aren’t as far fetched as you might imagine — the era of the vocal computer is upon us, friends.

Filed under: Misc, AT&T

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