SAN FRANCISCO: Google began turning smartphones into real-time language translators — of both written and spoken content.
The California-based Internet titan is hoping that, along with making it easier for people to understand one another on their travels, Google Translate will serve as a useful tool for teachers, medical personnel, police and others with important roles in increasingly multi-lingual communities.
The company began rolling out a new version of a free Google Translate application that, in part, lets people point Android or Apple smartphones at signs, menus, recipes or other material written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish and see it in English.
“We’re letting you instantly translate text using your camera, so it’s way easier to navigate street signs in the Italian countryside or decide what to order off a Barcelona menu,” the Google Translate team said in a blogpost.
BEWARE OF PIRANHAS: The company began rolling out a new version of a free Google Translate application that lets people point Android or Apple smartphones at signs, menus, recipes or other material written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish and see it in English. — AFP
The feature builds on Word Lens technology that Google acquired last year when it bought Quest Visual, a startup founded by former video game developer Otavio Good.
Word Lens uses video mode in smartphone cameras to scan scenes, identify writing and then display it as if it were written in English, a demonstration by Good revealed.
“If you are looking at a restaurant menu, it’s nice to see which thing on the menu you are looking at so you can point at it when you order,” Good said as he used his iPhone to scan and translate an Italian pasta recipe.
Word Lens in Google Translate operates independent of the Internet, avoiding data charges from telecommunication service providers, he explained.
The new Google Translate also features a conversation mode that uses voice recognition and the power of the Internet cloud to translate both sides of a chat between people speaking different languages, the demonstration showed.
People pair any two of 38 language options, then smartphones listen in and convert them during chats. An automated voice speaks translations, which are displayed in writing on smartphone screens, while transcripts of chats can be saved.
Computing power for translating conversations comes from Google servers, so connections to the Internet through WiFi or telecom carriers are needed.
The team at Google is working to expand available languages and capabilities, according to Good. — AFP
The company's latest flagship phone may be lacking in premium materials but according to DisplayMate, it more than makes up for it, thanks to a screen that it claims sets a new standard for mobile devices.
DisplayMate is known within the industry for its in-depth analysis and reviews of screen technology in the latest mobile and desktop devices and for manufacturing technologies used for testing display and screen performance.
It was DisplayMate that declared the latest iPad Mini's display inferior compared with the latest Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 and now the company is bowled over by what Samsung's latest handset has to offer.
The device clocked up the highest scores ever in a number of categories, even when compared with tablets, leading DisplayMate to report: "Based on our extensive Lab tests and measurements, the Galaxy S5 is the Best performing Smartphone display that we have ever tested. It has a long list of new records for best Smartphone display performance including: Highest Brightness, Lowest Reflectance, Highest Color Accuracy, Infinite Contrast Ratio, Highest Contrast Rating in Ambient Light, and smallest Brightness Variation with Viewing Angle. The Galaxy S5 has raised the bar for top display performance up by another notch -- an impressive achievement for OLED technology."
As well as an incredible display, the Galaxy S5 will sport a 2.5GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM a fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor and will be water- and dust-resistant when it officially goes on sale later this month.
Traditionally, when we have thought of “Big Brother technology” we have thought of government oppression. But these days, it isn’t just governments that are using creepy new technologies to spy on all of us. As you will see below, “Big Brother surveillance” has become very big business. In the information age, knowledge is power, and big corporations seem to have an endless thirst for even more of it. So it isn’t just governments that are completely obsessed with watching, tracking, monitoring and recording virtually everything that we do. Corporations have discovered that they can use Orwellian technologies to make lots of money, and this is likely only going to get worse in the years ahead. Below, I have shared a few examples of this phenomenon…
Private Companies Are Using Automated License Plate Readers To Spy On You
Did you know that people who work for private companies are driving around scanning our license plates?
I never knew this until I came across an article about it the other day. The following is an excerpt from that article…
Few notice the “spotter car” from Manny Sousa’s repo company as it scours Massachusetts parking lots, looking for vehicles whose owners have defaulted on their loans. Sousa’s unmarked car is part of a technological revolution that goes well beyond the repossession business, transforming any industry that wants to check on the whereabouts of ordinary people.
An automated reader attached to the spotter car takes a picture of every license plate it passes and sends it to a company in Texas that already has more than 1.8 billion plate scans from vehicles across the country.
These scans mean big money for Sousa — typically $200 to $400 every time the spotter finds a vehicle that’s stolen or in default — so he runs his spotter around the clock, typically adding 8,000 plate scans to the database in Texas each day.
Your Cell Phone Is Spying On You
If you carry a cell phone around with you, then you are willingly offering up a whole host of information about yourself. This is something that I have written about previously, but I never realized that some private companies are now setting up sensors in businesses to purposely capture information from the cell phones of anyone that walks in. Yes, this is actually happening according to the Wall Street Journal…
Fan Zhang, the owner of Happy Child, a trendy Asian restaurant in downtown Toronto, knows that 170 of his customers went clubbing in November. He knows that 250 went to the gym that month, and that 216 came in from Yorkville, an upscale neighborhood.
And he gleans this information without his customers’ knowledge, or ever asking them a single question.
Mr. Zhang is a client of Turnstyle Solutions Inc., a year-old local company that has placed sensors in about 200 businesses within a 0.7 mile radius in downtown Toronto to track shoppers as they move in the city.
Entire “Big Brother Housing Developments” Are Now Being Designed
Would you live in a housing development with a sophisticated “video surveillance program” and that uses automated license plate scanners to monitor everyone who comes and goes from the community?
In a country that is becoming increasingly obsessed with “security”, these new kinds of housing developments are surely going to be quite popular. The following is an excerpt from an article about one of these communities that is being built in California…
A new, scenic development surrounded by winding waterways is billed as a safe haven.
Only four bridges lead in and out of the area with security checkpoints and a fiberoptic video surveillance program. Every license plate scanned on those roads will be cross-checked with a DMV database for stolen cars.
The first homes are already going up at River Islands, and the people who move in can expect to be part of a new era in policing.
Disney Implements The “MagicBand” Tracking Device
Would you wear an RFID tracking device that allows you to buy stuff and that monitors you wherever you go?
Well, Disney actually wants their customers to willingly use this technology.
They are calling it the “MagicBand”, and perhaps you have already watched one of the new Disney commercials about it. You can see what Disney has to say about “MagicBand” right here.
In the video posted below, activist Mark Dice discusses this troubling move by Disney…
Our “Smart Televisions” Are Spying On Us
How would you feel if I told you that your expensive new television is actually spying on you?
You probably would not be too excited to hear that.
Well, depending on the actual brand, this is really happening. In fact, one brand of television actually sends information about every button that press on your remote back to corporate headquarters…
An IT consultant called Jason Huntley, who lives in a village near Hull, uncovered evidence that a flat-screen television, which had been sitting in his living room since the summer, was secretly invading his family’s privacy.
He began investigating the £400 LG device after noticing that its home screen appeared to be showing him ‘targeted’ adverts — for cars, and Knorr stock cubes — based on programmes he’d just been watching.
Huntley decided to monitor information that the so-called smart TV — which connects to the internet — was sending and receiving. He did this by using his laptop effectively as a bridge between his television and the internet receiver, so the laptop was able to show all the data being sucked out of his set.
He soon discovered that details of not just every show he watched but every button he pressed on his remote control were being sent back to LG’s corporate headquarters in South Korea.
Data Mining – Your Personal Information Is Big Business
There are huge companies that most people have never even heard of that do nothing but buy and sell our personal information. The collection of this personal information is called “data mining”, and it is extremely profitable.
In fact, there is one company called Acxiom that made a profit of more than 77 million dollars in one recent year by collecting and selling info about all of us.
In case you were wondering, yes, Acxiom almost certainly has a profile on you too…
The company fits into a category called database marketing. It started in 1969 as an outfit called Demographics Inc., using phone books and other notably low-tech tools, as well as one computer, to amass information on voters and consumers for direct marketing. Almost 40 years later, Acxiom has detailed entries for more than 190 million people and 126 million households in the U.S., and about 500 million active consumers worldwide. More than 23,000 servers in Conway, just north of Little Rock, collect and analyze more than 50 trillion data ‘transactions’ a year.
As long as these technologies are legal and businesses can make money this way, they are going to keep doing it.
So even if we stopped the rapid expansion of “Big Brother surveillance” by the governments of the world, the reality is that private corporations are going to keep pushing the envelope.
We live in a world that is rapidly changing, and unless a miracle happens we soon will not have very much privacy left at all.
admin: Dunia sudah semakin sempit dan tiada lagi rahsia yang mungkin kita tidak sedar bahawa hampir semua peranti elektronik harian yang kita gunakan boleh menjadi 'pemerhati' setiap aktiviti dan dan segala tindakan kita tanpa sedari, tiada lagi dunia yang 'privasi' kecuali hidup tanpa gajet atau peranti.
Oleh itu kita perlu berhati-hati dengan teknologi kerana ia boleh memerangkap kita tanpa kita sedari.
Sebagai satu contoh, Sistem Pengesanan Berpusat atau GPS sebenarnya membuatkan kita sentiasa dikesan walau dimana kita berada. Dari satu segi ia nampak memberi kebaikan kerana kita sentiasa dalam pemamtauan, akan tetapi dari satu segi ia boleh mengongkong hidup kita dengan gangguan dan tidak selamat dari segi keselamatan.
Kebanyakan teknologi pada hari ini menurut ex army US Navi Seal, adalah teknologi tentera US yang telah diguna pakai sejak 20 atau 30 tahun yang lepas yang kini menjadi kegunaan awam seluruh dunia. Ini membolehkan semua teknologi sekarang boleh di akses atau dihack atau ditembusi dengan mudah oleh perisikan ketenteraan. Malah teknologi yang ada pada ketenteraan US kini adalah 50 hingga 100 tahun kehadapan.
Tentunya keadaan ini menyebabkan mereka menjadi megah dengan kehebatan teknologi yang ada sehingga sanggup menguasai sesiapa sahaja .
The next generation of Samsung’s flagship, big-selling smartphone is here. While the hardware design is still conservative, looking a lot like the previous S4 and S3, there are a bunch of refinements inside and out on the new Samsung Galaxy S5.
Here are some of the more note-worthy details of the Galaxy S5:
5.1-inch screen at 1920×1080 resolution. That’s 1080p HD. No sign of rumored qHD displays
The latest Android 4.4.2, which is good.
Touchwiz, Samsung’s Android skin, is refreshed to look less tacky and awkward, but it’s still recognizably Touchwiz.
Dust resistant and waterproof submerged up to 1 meter.
The plastics feel less cheap.
Fingerprint scanner.
Heart-rate monitor built in, which works with the S Health app.
Despite the evolution in Touchwiz, it’s still a space-hogging beast of bloatware. The AndroidCentral crew, on the scene at MWC 2014 in Barcelona, note that the 16GB version of the Galaxy S5 with which they got a hands-on comes with a mere 7.86GB of free space. That’s a problem also seen in the S4.
Samsung is not one for bold design, and it remains to be seen if the staid S5 will impress new buyers and Galaxy upgraders in the year to come. The S5′s predecessor, the Galaxy S4, will likely fail to hitthe anticipated sales figure of 100 million set by CEO JK Shin as the company battles the iPhone at the top-end and a thousand smaller rivals that are undercutting the mid-range Galaxy phones.
