Ask and ye shall receive.
At least if the supplicant is the Net's most prominent techie cartoonist and Google is in a position to fulfill the request.
In late September, I chuckled at Randall Munroe's XKCD cartoon about living to regret YouTube comments. The cartoon suggested a virus that would read people's YouTube comments back to them before they posted. The result was the mass realization that we're all a bunch of morons, which, judging by the average YouTube comment I see, doesn't seem too far off the mark.
Well, lo and behold, such a thing now exists, as Google Blogoscoped pointed out Thursday, though alas not with the mandatory listen-before-you-post requirement Munroe suggested. Google added a text-to-speech button that will play back your comments.
YouTube comments, now with a text-to-speech engine.
(Credit: CNET News)Is it a coincidence? Speak your mind in the comments below, and I'll update if Google gets back to me with a response.
Though I could be persuaded otherwise. I suspect it's evidence of Google being witty, mostly because I'm having trouble figuring out the utility of the feature besides to show off what I see as a generally pretty impressive text-to-speech engine. Perhaps they're trying to see how well the engine can handle a little more load.
It would be more useful if there were some way to train the audio engine when it flubs, as it does with some foreign terms and proper nouns, or at least let it know its errors. I was impressed it could handle some awkward terms, though, including "CNET" and "syzygy." It runs out of available syllables before the comments field runs out of room for words, though it seems well suited to the typically brief, if inane, YouTube comment.
Update 7:52 a.m. PDT: Matt Cutts, Google's Web spam guru, believes the audio feature is indeed a hat-tip to XKCD. "I love that Google had the sense of humor to add this feature," he said.
Also, Munroe himself remarks on his own blog about the audio feature, aptly pointing to one commenter's post: "It's the DUMBEST FEATURE I've seen thus far. There is no practical use for it. None. Zero. Nada. Sheesh. (The audio preview of my own post sounded moronic!)"
YouTube might be best known for videos of cute animals and teens dancing with light sabers. But one nonprofit wants to use it as an idea factory.
The X Prize Foundation, the same organization behind the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize to send private vehicles to the moon, said Tuesday that it has put together an eco challenge for YouTubers called "What's your crazy green idea?" Dream up a world-changing idea to stop global warming, post a two-minute YouTube video about it, and it could be worth $25,000.
That's a paltry sum compared to the $10 million at stake for the X Prize's upcoming Automotive X Prize for energy-efficient vehicles. But the X Prize's goal with the YouTube contest is to drum up ideas from the general public for its next big Energy and Environment Challenge, which would potentially be worth millions to the people who implement the idea. For now, venture firm Prize Capital has staked $25,000 for a concept alone.
The X Prize Foundation is behind the $10 million Archon X Prize for Genomics and the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize to build a moon vehicle that can surf over lunar rocks. The YouTube contest is one of its first smaller-scale contests to seed a larger challenge, but it fits in with a broader investment theme of the environment. The foundation is scouting for breakthroughs in clean fuels, renewable energy, energy efficiency, energy storage, carbon reduction, and sustainable housing.
The video contest was announced Tuesday at a forum with Massachusetts Institute of Technology called "Seeking Radical Breakthroughs in Alternative Energy--What I Would Advise the Next President." The X Prize group teamed with MIT to host a fall lab class for students to come up with ideas on energy and environment challenges. Last semester, the same idea focused on health care resulted in a student idea for a tuberculosis diagnostics X Prize competition to help save 1.6 million lives per year.
But you don't have to attend MIT to think of an environmental prize. For the YouTube contest, people must submit their ideas to the Google-owned site before October 31. The three best will then be posted on the X Prize Web site on November 15, and the public can vote for the most outstanding within two weeks.
The guidelines are to answer three questions: What is the worldwide problem that you are trying to solve?; what is the specific prize idea, with rules and judging criteria?; and how will it benefit humanity?
Maybe the winning video will somehow involve a cute animal with a light saber?
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