talks

Talking Tom Cat 2 is the free, ad-supported follow-up to the popular app Talking Tom, featuring an animated cat that repeats everything you say in a funny voice.

Although Talking Tom Cat 2 has little repeat play value for grownups, the app is predictably a hit with the most kiddos--and its animation and graphics are above average for an app like this (especially in the iPad version). In addition to repeating what you say, Tom has several reactions you can trigger, like purring when you stroke him or hissing and clawing when you poke him. You can also record a … Read more

You can now listen to the oldest known American recording of a woman's voice that time and technology had left mute.

The recording of the first stanza from the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," believed to have been produced for a talking doll sold by Thomas Edison, was rediscovered in 1967.

But age had taken its toll. The ring-shaped cylinder phonograph record, which was made in 1888, was bent to the point where it no longer worked with a conventional stylus that required physical contact.

However, a group of scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used a new imaging technique to play the 12-second clip without needing to actually touch the record.

After creating a digital model of the record's surface using a three-dimensional optical scanning technology, researchers then saved the audio stored on the record as a .WAV audio file. The sound of the recording is faint and the first syllable of the first word of the recording is missing, but after more than a century, the sound of a human voice comes through. … Read more

After teasing Twitter followers earlier today, Google's Nexus account has announced that the Nexus S will be receiving a software update over the next few weeks.

The notable, and likely only, feature in this update is the integration of video chat over Google Talk. Once Nexus S phones are loaded with this latest release, they will be able to video chat with other Google Talk users whether on a desktop or Honeycomb (Android 3.0) tablet.

Calls can be made using Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G networks, taking advantage of the front-facing cameras found on many Android phones. According to the Google Mobile blog, this will be preloaded into all future 2.3 devices. … Read more

Always looking for new ways to deliver its search results, Google has rolled out a new app that combines instant messaging with search.

Launched today as the latest experiment in the Google Labs playground, Google Talk Guru offers you a chat session through which you can ask certain questions and receive responses from an automated bot set up on the back end.

For now, the app can handle only certain types of questions from among a limited number of categories, such as weather, sports scores, math equations, definitions, and translations. But like other Google Labs apps, it's something to … Read more

I devoured Tape Op magazine's interview with Jack White III (the White Stripes), mostly because the man is as obsessed with sound quality as I am. The interview was conducted by Tape Op's editor, Larry Crane, but it sounds more like a freewheeling conversation than an interview. Crane founded the magazine 15 years ago, and it now has a circulation of 55,000 print copies.

White never takes the easy way with his music and recording, and prefers analog tape machines, "I like the constriction of 8-track. I like knowing in the back of my head that … Read more

After keeping us in suspense for the last couple months, Sprint today finally laid out concrete plans for the future of Nextel's Direct Connect network. The carrier says it will retain the basic elements of the push-to-talk (PTT) network, but it will transition the service from iDEN to CDMA by the fourth quarter of this year.

The move will be a centerpiece of the carrier's "Network Vision" program that it announced last December. By consolidating the incompatible networks, Sprint promises to enhance coverage and data speeds, boost capacity, increase network flexibility, and reduce operating costs.

Since … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The wave is one of the most universal ways of saying hello or drawing attention, but how do you create an entire language of gestures that people know, make sure they work with your specialized camera system, then make it work around the world?

Microsoft faced that problem while developing the Kinect, which the company discussed today during a session here at this year's Game Developers Conference, which kicks off in earnest on Wednesday.

On hand was Kate Edwards, who is a geocultural content strategist for Englobe, a company that specializes in geopolitical and cartographic consultation. Edwards briefly … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Like any great endeavor, information technology does not come without its risks, former President Bill Clinton said this afternoon during a speech at the RSA security conference here.

Clinton stressed that this was especially true given recent events in Egypt, efforts to secure free Internet access around the world, investigations into WikiLeaks, and the fallout from the Stuxnet virus.

"There are no totally risk-free endeavors and advances," Clinton said. "At every step along the way we have to ask ourselves, 'what is it we're really trying to do here?'"

Clinton closed out the weeklong … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Twitter presents a relatively new frontier for spammers, malware creators, and all around bad guys, which in turn has created the opportunity for security researchers and vendors alike to try to figure out, and put a stop to, their efforts.

One company that's trying to get a handle on the size of the problem, and on ways to fight it, is Barracuda Networks. During a talk at the RSA security conference here, which wraps up tomorrow, Barracuda outlined some of the research it's been doing in this area over the past two years.

Paul Judge, chief research … Read more