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Transcribe videos with VoxcribeCC

Cheap speech recognition services are hard to come by. VoxcribeCC is cheaper than you might expect, but doesn't save you any time over traditional speech recognition services. For all your waiting, you're greeted by not-so-impressive results.

Though the program itself is free, the speech recognition service can cost as much as $10 per hour. Once you register, the program gives you a free hour of recording, though. Before you're allowed to register, you have to install the massive 1.3GB program, which can take a while. Once VoxcribeCC is on your computer, it also takes a while … Read more

All-new Lexus IS to debut in Detroit; what should we expect?

Lexus has announced that it will be pulling the wraps off of the all-new IS at the 2013 North American International Auto Show--better known to those of us car guys and gals as the Detroit Auto Show. The automaker has stated that the new model "has been completely redesigned, inside and out" and will be inspired by the LF-CC Coupe Concept (which we saw make its own debut at the 2012 Paris Auto Show) and the brand's LFA halo car.

Beyond that, the automaker hasn't said anything else about the new IS. So, exactly what should … Read more

Finally, a chance to tweet to aliens

I have so much to say to aliens, I really doubt I could keep it to 140 characters. But if I'm going to go the "Tweets in Space" route to speak to potential life forms on GJ667Cc, I'll need to keep it short.

The experimental art project will beam real-time tweets toward the exoplanet 22 light-years away during performance events at the 2012 International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) in New Mexico.

"Simply tag your Twitter messages with #tweetsinspace, and your phones, laptops, mobile devices -- anything with an Internet connection -- will be transformed into an alien communicator," says San Francisco new-media artist Scott Kildall, who is collaborating on the networked performance project with Nathaniel Stern, an associate professor in the Department of Art+Design at the University of Wisconsin's Peck School of the Arts. … Read more

Bury device reads BlackBerry e-mails to you

BMW may be the only current manufacturer to offer an infotainment system that reads your BlackBerry e-mails to you, but an aftermarket device offers that same capability without the $50,000 investment.

The Bury CC 9060 IQ is a voice-activated touch-screen device that you attach to your car's dashboard. The CC 9060 IQ works with several smartphones, offering hands-free calling and memo recording functionality.

With some phones, the device offers text-to-speech capability, reading text messages back to you. And if you're using a BlackBerry, the Bury CC 9060 IQ can read your e-mails out loud.

Drivers juggling more … Read more

Vimeo gets Creative Commons, global settings

Video host Vimeo on Tuesday is rolling out a new feature that will users apply Creative Commons (CC) licenses to their uploaded videos.

In short, when a user applies one of the six standard licenses, which range from "attribution" to "attribution with noncommercial and no derivatives," it gives those who intend to use the video elsewhere a specific set of rules for what they can do with it--all without having to first contact the creator for explicit permission.

Creative Commons licensing has been available for some time on a growing number of video- and photo-sharing sites, … Read more

Zero touts electric motorcycle

The all-electric Zero DS motorcycle from start-up Zero Motorcycles became available in the U.S. on Thursday.

For $9,950, U.S. drivers can ride both on and off-road free from carbon guilt.

In addition to running on a power pack of lithium-ion batteries, the all-electric motorcycle is made of 100 percent recyclable materials. The Santa Cruz, Calif.-based motorcycle manufacturer claims all the bike's materials are nontoxic and that even the battery pack is "landfill-approved."

The motorcycle has a range of 50 miles per charge, and can be charged from any standard 110- or 220-volt outlet, … Read more

Cc:Betty simplifies, sets sights on automation

Starting Wednesday, e-mail helper Cc:Betty has a new look. It now puts cc'd e-mail conversations in a threaded view, so you can look at past correspondence and catch up quickly. You're also able to sort out messages in each of those threads by person, attachment, and included links using filters that remain on the side of the screen.

The service has taken a similarly simplified approach to viewing both links and e-mail attachments by presenting them as thumbnails. This lets you very quickly parse through attached content without visiting your mail client. And using the aforementioned filters, … Read more

Cc:Betty tracks e-mail conversations for you

Cc:Betty, launching at this week's Demo 09, is a clever online assistant that tracks e-mail conversations.

Using it is simple: you copy betty@ccbetty.com on an e-mail, and it creates a Web-based "mail space" for the thread. The system parses out dates and locations as downloadable calendar items and map links. It also creates catalogs of media items (pictures and videos) and files that are attached to messages.

There's nothing in a Cc:Betty mail space that isn't stored inherently in the e-mail messages themselves, but the system's cataloging and feature extraction … Read more

Simplify Creative Commons, don't tweak it

As part of a study of how people understand the term "noncommercial use," Creative Commons CEO Joi Ito is conducting a poll linked to from his blog.

It's certainly a problematic restriction, as things stand. Unfortunately, Creative Commons appears to be going down the path of merely defining it more crisply when, in my view, the better approach would be simply to eliminate it entirely.

First, a little background. Creative Commons licenses are a sort of counterpart to open-source software licenses that is intended to apply to things like books, videos, photographs, and so forth. There are … Read more