Watch what you say. Scientists in England have developed a computer that can not only read lips, but can tell the difference between languages.
Mouth movements can differ according to the language spoken.
(Credit: University of East Anglia)Researchers at the University of East Anglia's School of Computing Sciences developed the technology by statistically modeling the lip motions of 23 bilingual and trilingual speakers. The resulting system is able to identify the language spoken by an individual with "very high accuracy," according to the university. Identifiable languages included English, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Polish, and Russian.
What gives you away? The movement of your articulators--when you wag your tongue, jaw, and lips, you are generating the measurable characteristics of visual speech, the recognition of which is known as lip reading. Computer vision has already been used in lip reading, or "feature extraction," but this is the first time computers have been "taught" to recognize different languages, according to UEA (PDF).
"This is an exciting advance in automatic lip-reading technology and the first scientific confirmation of something we already intuitively suspected--that when people speak different languages, they use different mouth shapes in different sequences," said Professor Stephen Cox, who led the research along with Jake Newman. "For example, we found frequent 'lip rounding' among French speakers, and more prominent tongue movements among Arabic speakers."
The discovery could have practical uses for the deaf, law enforcement, and military units serving overseas, the researchers predict. With a little fine tuning it may also help you figure out what language your teenager speaks.
Our friend at Cox is about to get selectively friendly toward Internet content.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CBS Interactive)Net neutrality fans, grab your chairs; I have some rocking news.
Cox Communications, the third-largest cable Internet provider in the U.S., announced Tuesday that starting February, it will begin testing a new method of managing traffic on its high-speed Internet network in Kansas and Arkansas.
This means during the times the network is congested the company will--to put it bluntly--discriminate between Internet content and regulate the bandwidth accordingly.
The company divides Internet traffic into two categories: time-sensitive and nontime-sensitive, with the former taking the priority during the congested hours.
Here's the company's break-down of these two categories:
The time sensitive category includes:
- Web (Web surfing, including web-based e-mail and chat embedded in Web pages)
- VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
- IM (Instant messages, including related voice and Webcam traffic)
- Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
- Games (Online interactive games)
- Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
- Other (Any service not categorized into another area)
The nontime-sensitive category includes:
- File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
- Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
- P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
- Software Updates (Managed updates, such as operating system updates)
- Usenet (Newsgroup related)
Cox says the new congestion management plan only kicks in when congestion levels reach a certain high. It also insists the company will ensure that its customers continue to have a good online experience.
Personally, I don't really mind this, because I live in California and games are categorized as time-sensitive. For those who are more concerned, you can learn more about Cox's congestion management plan here.
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