All posts tagged: voices

Hearing the Voices of People on the Ground

Hearing the Voices of People on the Ground

Published by skeptic

Amy Goodman Amy Goodman received the Humanist of the Year Award at the American Humanist Association’s 83rd Annual Conference, held virtually in September 2024. The award recognizes a person of national and international reputation who, through the application of humanist values, has made a significant contribution to the human condition. Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide. The New York Times has written that Democracy Now!, “distinguishes itself by documenting special movements, struggles for justice and the effects of American foreign policy, along with the rest of the day’s developments.” Goodman has reported on violent conflicts around the world, on unrest here at home, and has been arrested covering protests at the White House and the Republican convention. Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers. Her latest, Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America, looks back over the past two decades of the news program and the powerful movements and charismatic …

DeepL launches DeepL Voice, real-time, text-based translations from voices and videos

DeepL launches DeepL Voice, real-time, text-based translations from voices and videos

Published by skeptic

DeepL has made a name for itself with online text translation it claims is more nuanced and precise than services from the likes of Google — a pitch that has catapulted the German startup to a valuation of $2 billion and more than 100,000 paying customers. Now, as the hype for AI services continues to grow, DeepL is adding in another mode to the platform: audio. Users will now be able to use DeepL Voice to listen to someone speaking in one language and automatically translate it to another, in real time. English, German, Japanese, Korean, Swedish, Dutch, French, Turkish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Italian are languages that DeepL can “hear” today. Translated captions are available for all of the 33 languages currently supported by DeepL Translator. Image Credits:DeepL (opens in a new window) under a (opens in a new window) license. DeepL Voice is currently stopping short of delivering the result as an audio or video file itself: the service is aimed at real-time, live conversations and video conferencing, and comes through as text, not …

Queen Camilla spotlights voices of domestic abuse survivors in powerful new documentary

Queen Camilla spotlights voices of domestic abuse survivors in powerful new documentary

Published by skeptic

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email In her first documentary feature since ascending the throne, Queen Camilla has given survivors of domestic abuse a powerful voice during a rare glimpse of her work as a senior royal. The 90-minute film follows Camilla over the last year as she attends official engagements and never-before-seen private meetings with survivors and campaigners of domestic abuse. She is seen visiting a refuge and speaking candidly with survivors about their deeply personal experiences, as well as revealing what drove her to spend the last decade raising awareness. Earlier this year, Camilla backed The Independent’s Brick by Brick campaign to build two new refuges for women fleeing abuse. Thanks to generous donations from readers the initial £300,000 target has recently been reached, with more than £500,000 of donations pouring in so far and plans are already underway for the building of a second home. Be a brick, buy a brick and donate here or text …

New Psychiatric Technique Asks Schizophrenics to Engage in Dialogue With the Voices in Their Heads

New Psychiatric Technique Asks Schizophrenics to Engage in Dialogue With the Voices in Their Heads

Published by José

Image by Getty / Futurism Researchers have come up with an ingenious new approach to treating psychosis: creating an “avatar” for the often upsetting voices in one’s head and talking to them like they’re real, living people. As The Guardian reports, there have now been multiple clinical trials displaying the power of this so-called “avatar therapy.” Case in point, a new paper in the journal Nature Medicine demonstrates that giving voice and face to the dark forces inside the heads of people who suffer from auditory hallucinations can be a promising treatment strategy. Like customizing a character in a video game, people who undergo this experimental treatment create digital avatars that resemble or symbolize the voices they hear. Some people are talked down to by cruel authority figures and others are menaced by demons — and by creating an externalized avatar on a screen and having a therapist simulate the things they say, those persecuting voices can often be controlled. It’s a deceptively simple scheme that has time and again borne out promising results. These digitally-assisted interventions …

Scientists Say They’ve Traced Back the Voices Heard by People With Schizophrenia

Scientists Say They’ve Traced Back the Voices Heard by People With Schizophrenia

Published by José

Image by Getty / Futurism Scientists believe they’ve discovered where the “voices” heard by some people with schizophrenia emanate from using brainwave mapping. As detailed in a new study published in the journal PLOS Biology and conducted by researchers at New York University’s Shanghai campus, the way people experience auditory hallucinations may not be that different from the way humans hear external sounds. Scientists have long suggested that people with schizophrenia and other disorders hear voices that are not there because their brains have trouble distinguishing between their own inner thought processes and external voices, which to them makes it seem like someone unseen is speaking to them. Because these voices are processed like any other sound in the brains of people who experience auditory hallucinations, the team at NYU Shanghai’s Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science decided to put electroencephalogram (EEG) monitors on people with schizophrenia  — 20 participants who hear voices and 20 who don’t — to see what was different about their brains. As the researchers discovered, it appeared that the brains …

Taliban reject UN concerns over laws banning women’s voices and bare faces in public

Taliban reject UN concerns over laws banning women’s voices and bare faces in public

Published by skeptic

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Taliban on Monday rejected concerns and criticism raised by the United Nations over new vice and virtue laws that ban women in Afghanistan from baring their faces and speaking in public places. Roza Otunbayeva, who heads the U.N. mission in the country, UNAMA, said Sunday that the laws provided a “distressing vision” for Afghanistan’s future. She said the laws extend the “ already intolerable restrictions ” on the rights of women and girls, with “even the sound of a female voice” outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation. Zabihullah Mujahid, the main spokesman for the Taliban’s government, issued a statement warning against “arrogance” from those who he said may not be familiar with Islamic law, particularly non-Muslims who might express reservations or objections. “We urge a thorough understanding of these laws and a respectful acknowledgment of Islamic values. To reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance,” he said. Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Wednesday issued the country’s first set of laws to discourage vice …

Not even their voices! – Atheist Alliance International

Not even their voices! – Atheist Alliance International

Published by skeptic

Climate change and the accompanying prolonged summer laziness prevent us from realizing that in other parts of our planet there is a harsh winter – and I am not referring to the … weather conditions. I’m sorry if my topic today doesn’t go along with sun creams, rackets, sunbeds, the general foolery of the Greek summer, and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t have a problem if you don’t even bother to read it judging that, these poor vacations of yours, shortened and made expensive, you won’t let any moron ruin it for you, especially now that it’s coming to an end, if you haven’t already stockpiled it as a nostalgic reserve until next year. I understand you completely, we’re still friends.  We have news from Afghanistan. No, it’s not good news. This is no surprise – it would be a surprise if we had good news. For decades, Afghanistan has been an experimental laboratory of dystopia. Compared to what takes place in Afghanistan, the dark visions of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley or Philip …

Why the Voices of Black Twitter Were Worth Saving

Why the Voices of Black Twitter Were Worth Saving

Published by skeptic

The fear was reasonable. It was a fear I also carried. Uncertainty about whether or not I should tell the story now, and whether or not it was right to air what many consider family secrets, crept into the back of my mind. But I knew this story deserved to be told. When I set out to chronicle Black Twitter in April 2021—charting its rise, power, and what I felt was its unquestionable cultural impact—I was, admittedly, attempting to define a community that defies easy definition. In truth, Black Twitter is more than a community. It is an ever-growing, always-evolving force that has influenced nearly every aspect of modern life. Black Twitter is the birthplace of all your favorite memes, hashtags, and trends. It is more than that, too: Black Twitter doesn’t simply make culture, it shapes society. From the history-setting presidency of Barack Obama to hashtags like #OscarsSoWhite, #BlackGirlMagic and #BlackLivesMatter, Black Twitter is both the extraordinary and the everyday. It is, as I wrote in 2021, all the things: news and analysis, call …

Hang on, that voice is familiar – who voices Hades II’s Melinoe?

Hang on, that voice is familiar – who voices Hades II’s Melinoe?

Published by skeptic

Voice acting in video games is big business and a solid career choice these days if you have the dulcet tones for the job. Very often you will find somebody who voices your favorite character in a video game has often appeared as the voice of many other characters you have played in games over the years. The latest example of a gaming CV like a fine wine is that of Judy Alice Lee who is currently doing amazing work in the role of Hades II’s main character Melinoe. The game may be in Early Access but the voicework of the brilliant first game has returned to breathe even more life into the sequel. But this is not Judy’s first gaming rodeo. The Korean American from Los Angeles has been working doing video game and animation voiceovers since her first listed appearance in League of Legends way back in 2009. Who is Hades 2 voice actress? Since then she has appeared in most of gaming’s biggest franchises, lending her talents to voice characters you and …

Study explores women’s voices in online pornography abstinence forums

Study explores women’s voices in online pornography abstinence forums

Published by José

A new study published in Archives of Sexual Behavior examined how women in pornography abstinence forums, particularly r/pornfreewomen, use their experiences of abstaining from pornography to challenge societal norms and support each other. Online forums like Porn Free Women provide spaces for women to discuss their challenges and experiences with pornography abstinence. The current research shifts focus from the more commonly researched male perspectives to highlight the unique experiences of women in these online communities. This research adopted sexual script theory, a perspective suggesting that our behaviors and roles in sexuality are not only biologically based but also shaped by societal norms and cultural scripts. This theory elucidates how individuals internalize and perform expected sexual behaviors that are presumably learned through interaction with their social environments. Researchers Xinyu Zhang and David E. Silva utilized a mixed methods approach combining structural topic modeling (STM) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze discussions in the r/pornfreewomen subreddit. The study collected posts from January 2019 to February 2023, totaling 8,135 submissions. The dataset included user-generated content that ranged …