#speech recognition software

[giantkillerjack]

Quick update on the State of the Nation & Very Important Technological Advancement:

The speech-to-text tool on my Android phone recognizes the word "destiel".

It's a little janky and apparently 50% likely to spontaneously delete all the other words in the sentence and just leave "destiel" for some reason.

But isn't that what Supernatural is really about? Aren't we really all just here in this fandom to forget all the words except for Destiel??

.... Now if I could JUST get speech-to-text to REMEMBER LITERALLY ANY ETHNIC NAME, THAT'D BE GREAT.

I know for a fact that it is possible and even relatively easy to teach speech recognition software to register new words because I used to work testing and calibrating Alexa apps. I KNOW HUMANITY HAS THE TECHNOLOGY, DAMMIT! - But I haven't been able to find a speech-to-text app that allows me to do this. Anyone else have more success than me?

[the-latest-research]

Speech and Voice Recognition Market to be Worth $56.07 Billion by 2030

Meticulous Research®—leading global market research company, published a research report titled, ‘Speech and Voice Recognition Market by Function (Speech, Voice Recognition), Technology (AI and Non-AI), Deployment Mode (Cloud, On-premise), End User (Consumer Electronics, Automotive, BFSI, Other End Users), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2030.’

Speech Recognition Market Booming with AI and Growing Applications

The speech recognition market is poised for significant growth, reaching an estimated $56.07 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 19.1%, acoording to Meticulous Research®. This surge is fueled by several key trends:

Voice Biometrics on the Rise: Security systems and financial applications are increasingly adopting voice biometrics for user authentication, offering a convenient and secure solution.

Voice Assistants Take Center Stage: Virtual assistants powered by AI are transforming how we interact with technology in homes, cars, and workplaces.

Smart Devices Drive Demand: The proliferation of voice-enabled smart speakers, wearables, and appliances is creating a strong demand for accurate speech recognition technology.

Download Sample Report Here @ https://www.meticulousresearch.com/download-sample-report/cp_id=5038

Challenges and Opportunities in Speech Recognition

Despite its growth potential, the market faces some hurdles:

Accent and Dialect Hurdles: Current systems may struggle with regional variations in speech patterns, requiring ongoing development for wider adoption.

Background Noise Interference: Speech recognition accuracy can be hampered by ambient noise, demanding improvements in noise cancellation techniques.

However, exciting opportunities lie ahead:

AI Integration Enhances Functionality: The integration of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is continuously improving speech recognition accuracy and functionality.

Multilingual Communication: Speech recognition is poised to play a vital role in bridging language barriers by facilitating translation of rare and local languages.

Voice Authentication Gains Traction: The growing demand for secure mobile banking and other applications is driving the adoption of voice authentication technologies.

Market Segmentation Highlights

The report also explores various segments within the speech recognition market:

Function: Speech recognition (converting speech to text) holds the dominant market share due to the widespread use of AI and smart devices.

Technology: AI-powered speech recognition is leading the way due to its effectiveness in powering virtual assistants and other intelligent applications.

Deployment Mode: Cloud-based deployments are gaining traction due to their scalability, affordability, and ease of use, particularly for small and medium businesses.

End User: The IT and telecommunications sector currently holds the largest share, but the consumer electronics segment is expected to witness the fastest growth due to the rising popularity of voice-enabled devices.

Geography: North America dominates the market due to the presence of major technology players and a strong focus on improving customer service experiences.

By understanding these trends and segmentation, businesses can capitalize on the immense potential of the speech recognition market.

Key Players:

Some of the key players operating in the speech and voice recognition market are Microsoft Corporation (U.S.), Amazon Web Services, Inc. (U.S.), Google LLC (U.S.), IBM Corporation (U.S.), Verint Systems Inc. (U.S.), Baidu, Inc. (China), Apple Inc. (U.S.), Speechmatics (U.K.), Sensory, Inc. (U.S.), AssemblyAI, Inc. (U.S.), iFLYTEK Co., Ltd. (China), LumenVox (U.S.), SESTEK (Turkey), and Dolbey Systems, Inc. (U.S.).Contact Us: Meticulous Research® Email- sales@meticulousresearch.com Contact Sales- +1-646-781-8004 Connect with us on LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/meticulous-research

[sohojware]

How To Create A Speech Recognition System Using HTML, CSS And JavaScript - Sohojware

The way we interact with technology is constantly evolving. Gone are the days of clunky keyboards and endless typing. Speech recognition systems, a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI), have emerged as a powerful tool, allowing us to interact with our devices through the power of our voice. This technology has many applications, from creating voice-controlled assistants to transcribing audio recordings.

In this article, brought to you by Sohojware, a leading US-based software development company, we'll delve into the exciting world of speech recognition systems and guide you through building a basic one using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

What is a Speech Recognition System?

A speech recognition system (speech recognition system), also known as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), is a technology that converts spoken language into text. Imagine being able to dictate emails, search the web, or control your smart home devices using just your voice. Speech recognition systems are making this a reality, transforming the way we interact with computers and the digital world.

Benefits of Speech Recognition Systems

Speech recognition systems offer a multitude of advantages, including:

Increased Accessibility: Speech recognition systems empower individuals with disabilities or those who struggle with typing to interact with technology more easily.

Enhanced Productivity: Speech recognition systems can significantly boost productivity by allowing users to dictate tasks and commands instead of manually typing.

Improved Accuracy: Speech recognition systems can potentially reduce errors by eliminating the need for manual data entry.

Hands-free Interaction: Speech recognition systems enable hands-free control of devices, allowing for multitasking and greater convenience.

Building a Basic Speech Recognition System with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript

Sohojware is dedicated to empowering developers and enthusiasts of all levels. Here's a step-by-step guide to creating a simple speech recognition system using these fundamental web technologies:

1. HTML Structure

First, we'll establish the basic structure of our web page using HTML. Let's create an index.html file with the following code:

This code creates a basic HTML document with a title, a link to a CSS stylesheet (style.css), and a container (div) for our speech recognition system. Inside the container, we have a button to initiate recognition and a div to display the recognized text (transcript). Finally, we include a script tag that references an external JavaScript file (script.js) containing the core functionality.

2. CSS Styling (style.css)

Now, let's add some visual appeal to our application using CSS:

This code simply styles the elements within our speech-container div, providing a centered layout, margins, and basic button and text styling. You can customize these styles further to match your preferences.

3. JavaScript Functionality (script.js)

The magic happens in the JavaScript code. Here's what goes inside the script.js file:

This code:

Retrieves elements: Select the start button and transcript element from the HTML document.

Adds event listener: Attaches a click event listener to the start button.

Creates recognition object: Initializes a webkitSpeechRecognition object.

Sets language: Specifies the language for recognition (in this case, English-US).

Handles results: Defines a callback function for the onresult event, which is triggered when the recognition engine receives speech data. The recognized text is extracted and displayed in the transcript element.

Handles errors: Defines a callback function for the onerror event, which is triggered if an error occurs during recognition. The error message is logged to the console.

Starts recognition: Begins the speech recognition process by calling the start() method on the recognition object.

Additional Considerations

Browser Compatibility: While webkitSpeechRecognition is widely supported, it's essential to consider browser compatibility and provide alternative solutions for older browsers.

Error Handling: Implement more robust error handling to provide informative feedback to the user in case of recognition errors.

Accuracy: Experiment with different language models and settings to improve recognition accuracy for specific use cases.

Privacy: Be mindful of privacy concerns when handling speech data, especially in sensitive contexts. Consider using secure and privacy-preserving technologies.

Conclusion

By following these steps and leveraging the power of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can create a functional speech recognition system that enhances user interaction and opens up new possibilities for your web applications. Sohojware, a leading US-based software development company, is committed to providing innovative solutions and empowering developers like you to build cutting-edge applications.

FAQs

How can I improve the accuracy of my speech recognition system?

Experiment with different language models and settings.

Consider using a cloud-based speech recognition service for higher accuracy.

Provide clear and concise prompts to guide the user's speech.

Can I use speech recognition to control other elements on my web page?

Absolutely! You can use JavaScript to trigger events or manipulate elements based on the recognized speech.

How can I ensure privacy when using speech recognition?

Consider using secure and privacy-preserving techniques to handle speech data.

Inform users about your privacy practices and obtain their consent.

What are some common use cases for speech recognition systems?

Voice-controlled assistants

Transcription of audio recordings

Accessibility features for individuals with disabilities

Hands-free control of devices

Can Sohojware assist me in developing a more advanced speech recognition system?

Yes, Sohojware offers custom software development services to help you create sophisticated speech recognition systems tailored to your specific needs.

[f1ghtsoftly]

All The Women’s News You Missed This Week

3/10/25-3/17/25

Furious protests erupt in Bangladesh after an 8-year-old girl succumbs to injuries she sustained after being brutally raped. Indian health workers strike for better working conditions. The Queen sends a letter of support to Giselle Pelicot. The Supreme Court will take up conversion therapy bans in a Colorado case and in Kentucky state lawmakers have voted to protect the practice. Ukranian women’s organizations struggle without US funding.

In a piece of good news, Fatou Baldeh, a campaigner against the practice of FGM, has been named Time’s Woman Of The Year.

Want this in your inbox instead? Subscribe here

Opinion and Investigative:

As the US backslides, can China claim moral high ground on women’s rights?

Why US abortion restrictions matter beyond borders

Serbia’s Femicide Record Undermines Claims of Progress on Women’s Rights

The GOP’s Next Target? No-Fault Divorce and Women’s Right to Leave

Lorraine Kelly: Diversity push is leaving working-class people behind

Women, girls bear brunt of cyberbullying against persons with disabilities

“IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD”: ENDOMETRIOSIS PATIENTS AND THE PROMISE OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE

LGBT:

Supreme Court will take up state bans on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ children, in a Colorado case

Angry response to how transgender lawmaker Sarah McBride introduced

A new anti-LGBTQ+ bill in Hungary would ban Pride event and allow use of facial recognition software

North Dakota Senate rejects resolution asking US Supreme Court to overturn same-sex marriage ruling

Kentucky GOP lawmakers vote to protect conversion therapy

Women’s Rights:

Iran: Authorities target women’s rights activists with arbitrary arrest, flogging and death penalty

Louisiana woman pleads not guilty to a felony in historic abortion case

Risks of state abortion reporting mandates outweigh the benefits, an advocacy group says

Iran using drones and apps to enforce women's dress code

Kentucky lawmakers add specific medical exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban

Driving ban puts brakes on young women in Turkmenistan

Ukrainian women’s rights organisations struggle as US aid suspended

Male Violence:

Search for US student in Dominican Republic intensifies

Things to know about the former megachurch pastor charged with child sexual abuse

Airman charged in killing of Native American woman who went missing 7 months ago in South Dakota

UN experts accuse Israel of sexual violence and 'genocidal acts' in Gaza

'He strangled me without asking' - experts say choking during sex now normal for many

Sean 'Diddy' Combs pleads not guilty to updated indictment

Disabled author swamped by hate speech after social media post on feminism

Women Fight Back:

Haitian women commemorate International Women’s Day spotlighting broken justice system

How Iran's 'Woman, Life, Freedom' Protests Live On Today

FGM campaigner honoured with Time magazine title

Teacher ordered to remove signs from classroom, including one saying 'Everyone is welcome here'

Mother of woman who died after Georgia’s six-week abortion ban calls for law’s repeal

Women Radio amplifies African feminist voices

Texas midwife accused by state’s attorney general of providing illegal abortions

BBC presenters settle sex and age discrimination dispute

Queen sent letter of support to Gisèle Pelicot

Yasmeen Lari rejects Israel's Wolf Prize over "continuing genocide in Gaza"

Fierce protests as eight-year-old rape victim dies in Bangladesh

India's frontline health workers fight for better pay and recognition

US arrests second pro-Palestinian Columbia University protester

Women in the News:

Democrat Rebecca Cooke to again challenge US Rep. Derrick Van Orden

Brown Medicine professor and doctor deported to Lebanon despite having valid visa, court filings claim

Woman arrested in US for allegedly holding stepson captive for 20 years

WATCH: Woman trapped in car films as tornado hits Central Florida

'For holding a wombat, thousands threatened my life'

Judge says Fani Willis violated open records law, orders her to pay $54K in attorneys’ fees

Feel Good Stories and Feminist History:

The forgotten story of the woman who invented the dishwasher

The Mexican women who defied drug-dealers, fly-tippers and chauvinists to build a thriving business

Early members of Philly’s roller derby league face off in a match circa 2005-2006. Jeff Fusco/The Conversation U.S., CC BY-ND Philly Roller Derby league turns 20 - here’s how the sport skated its way to feminism, anti-racism and queer liberation

'We couldn't get jobs in sexist garages - so we set up our own'

5 Major Historical Movements Led By Women In Rajasthan

Arts and Culture:

‘Just be radical’: the feminist artist giving Matisse a modern punk twist

The film exploring loneliness of migrant workers

'Santosh' review: Feminist police drama confronts harsh truths

Shabana Azmi On Feminism And Her Powerful Role In ‘Dabba Cartel’

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I want my books to be read in Africa

Cannes award-winning actress Dequenne dies at 43

Legendary Russian composer Gubaidulina dies in Germany

Book Review: Patrycja Humienik’s powerful debut poetry collection is a conundrum worth mulling over

13 Nonfiction Books to Read This Women’s History Month

As always, this is global and domestic news from a US perspective, covering feminist issues and women in the news more generally. As of right now, I do not cover Women’s Sports. Published each Monday.

[askablindperson]

In what way does alt text serve as an accessibility tool for blind people? Do you use text to speech? I'm having trouble imagining that. I suppose I'm in general not understanding how a blind person might use Tumblr, but I'm particularly interested in the function of alt text.

In short, yes. We use text to speech (among other access technology like braille displays) very frequently to navigate online spaces. Text to speech software specifically designed for blind people are called screen readers, and when use on computers, they enable us to navigate the entire interface using the keyboard instead of the mouse And hear everything on screen, as long as those things are accessible. The same applies for touchscreens on smart phones and tablets, just instead of using keyboard commands, it alters the way touch affect the screen so we hear what we touch before anything actually gets activated. That part is hard to explain via text, but you should be able to find many videos online of blind people demonstrating how they use their phones.

As you may be able to guess, images are not exactly going to be accessible for text to speech software. Blindness screen readers are getting better and better at incorporating OCR (optical character recognition) software to help pick up text in images, and rudimentary AI driven Image descriptions, but they are still nowhere near enough for us to get an accurate understanding of what is in an image the majority of the time without a human made description.

Now I’m not exactly a programmer so the terminology I use might get kind of wonky here, but when you use the alt text feature, the text you write as an image description effectively gets sort of embedded onto the image itself. That way, when a screen reader lands on that image, Instead of having to employ artificial intelligences to make mediocre guesses, it will read out exactly the text you wrote in the alt text section.

Not only that, but the majority of blind people are not completely blind, and usually still have at least some amount of residual vision. So there are many blind people who may not have access to a screen reader, but who may struggle to visually interpret what is in an image without being able to click the alt text button and read a description. Plus, it benefits folks with visual processing disorders as well, where their visual acuity might be fine, but their brain’s ability to interpret what they are seeing is not. Being able to click the alt text icon in the corner of an image and read a text description Can help that person better interpret what they are seeing in the image, too.

Granted, in most cases, typing out an image description in the body of the post instead of in the alt text section often works just as well, so that is also an option. But there are many other posts in my image descriptions tag that go over the pros and cons of that, so I won’t digress into it here.

Utilizing alt text or any kind of image description on all of your social media posts that contain images is single-handedly one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to directly help blind people, even if you don’t know any blind people, and even if you think no blind people would be following you. There are more of us than you might think, and we have just as many varied interests and hobbies and beliefs as everyone else, so where there are people, there will also be blind people. We don’t only hang out in spaces to talk exclusively about blindness, we also hang out in fashion Facebook groups and tech subreddits and political Twitter hashtags and gaming related discord servers and on and on and on. Even if you don’t think a blind person would follow you, You can’t know that for sure, and adding image descriptions is one of the most effective ways to accommodate us even if you don’t know we’re there.

I hope this helps give you a clearer understanding of just how important alt text and image descriptions as a whole are for blind accessibility, and how we make use of those tools when they are available.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The Brutalist’s most intriguing and controversial technical feature points forward rather than back: in January, the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that he and Corbet used tools from AI speech software company Respeecher to make the Hungarian-language dialogue spoken by Adrien Brody (who plays the protagonist, Hungarian émigré architect László Tóth) and Felicity Jones (who plays Tóth’s wife Erzsébet) sound more Hungarian. In response to the ensuing backlash, Corbet clarified that the actors worked “for months” with a dialect coach to perfect their accents; AI was used “in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy.” In this way, Corbet seemed to suggest, the production’s two central performances were protected against the howls of outrage that would have erupted from the world’s 14 million native Hungarian speakers had The Brutalist made it to screens with Brody and Jones playing linguistically unconvincing Magyars. Far from offending the idea of originality and authorship in performance, AI in fact saved Brody and Jones from committing crimes against the Uralic language family; I shudder even to imagine how comically inept their performances might have been without this technological assist, a catastrophe of fumbled agglutinations, misplaced geminates, and amateur-hour syllable stresses that would have no doubt robbed The Brutalist of much of its awards season élan. This all seems a little silly, not to say hypocritical. Defenders of this slimy deception claim the use of AI in film is no different than CGI or automated dialogue replacement, tools commonly deployed in the editing suite for picture and audio enhancement. But CGI and ADR don’t tamper with the substance of a performance, which is what’s at issue here. Few of us will have any appreciation for the corrected accents in The Brutalist: as is the case, I imagine, for most of the people who’ve seen the film, I don’t speak Hungarian. But I do speak bullshit, and that’s what this feels like. This is not to argue that synthetic co-pilots and assistants of the type that have proliferated in recent years hold no utility at all. Beyond the creative sector, AI’s potential and applications are limitless, and the technology seems poised to unleash a bold new era of growth and optimization. AI will enable smoother reductions in headcount by giving managers more granular data on the output and sentiment of unproductive workers; it will allow loan sharks and crypto scammers to get better at customer service; it will offer health insurance companies the flexibility to more meaningfully tie premiums to diet, lifestyle, and sociability, creating billions in savings; it will help surveillance and private security solution providers improve their expertise in facial recognition and gait analysis; it will power a revolution in effective “pre-targeting” for the Big Pharma, buy-now-pay-later, and drone industries. Within just a few years advances like these will unlock massive productivity gains that we’ll all be able to enjoy in hell, since the energy-hungry data centers on which generative AI relies will have fried the planet and humanity will be extinct.

3 March 2025

[river-taxbird]

Tim Minchin once said "Do you know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."

I propose similar logic can be applied to AI. Predictive text, the youtube algorthm, speech recognition, searching photos by contents, it all uses similar tech to generative images or text, but most people don't think of them AI. Do you know what they call "AI" software that has proven to be useful? Software.

[diceramblesaboutocs]

Undirected Connection || Idia x Reader || Prologue

chapter 1 Author’s note: This is more of a premise or prologue. I haven’t ever really posted any of my writing officially and I wanted to do something light first. So I hope to give this more “chapters”. I want this to be more soft and friendship oriented but hey, we will see where it goes. Also the mandatory: English isn't my native language so...

Rating: Teen Pairing: Idia/Reader Words: 905 Tags: GenderNeutral Reader - Reader is from Ignihyde - Cat and mouse chase dynamic.

Summary:  "Dear students of NRC, Ever wanted your favorite actress or actor to wish you good night? Do you need a little encouragement for the finals? Or maybe you want them to say those sweet "well, well, well"s with their seductive voice to spice up your evening?

I, Litae, will humbly grant your prayer and wishes. Give me your desired voice (an actor, a character (must be a public figure)) and guidelines what would you want them to say only to you

2 thaumarks, a personal greeting for you

5 thaumarks, 30s clip.

NO NSFW content.

Payment will be handled via the Cave of Wonders app."

"You can do it, Idia! You'll be fine! Good night and sleep well tonight!"

The familiar voice of Idia's favorite idol echoed in the dim room as the call ended. This has been going on for a month now. Azul had cornered him in the board game clubroom after the session. He started to offer the most ridiculous things for Idia so that he would help him locate some mysterious entrepreneur. This entrepreneur known as Litae had taken the NRC campus by storm in just a week. And the Octavinelle housewarden smelled an opportunity for a great investment in that. A promise of financial gain.

Idia first had offered to create a voice generation software for him, but Azul declined. He wanted the real deal. Why create a rival when you can blackmail the original creator to join his team. Or as the merman had put it: Offer a safe working environment and stable income. Idia wanted to escape the situation, but seemed that the only way to do that was to agree to help his clubmate.

He started his research. It started from small testing, paying this Litae to give him a greeting or a small clip. To see if he could use a voice recognition software to find patterns, a recurring pitch or to see if the voice was generated by a computer. All coming back almost negative. There were some small recurring patterns, but not enough to pinpoint anyone exactly. And the voice wasn't AI generated either. Or if it was, it was a highly sophisticated model.

He asked Litae to voice different actors. Then fictional characters and lastly… one of his favorite characters from Sled over Heels. Why not indulge himself a bit? To have a high quality personalized greeting from his favorite character would make his heart flutter. And it did. A little bit of greetings there and a little bit of encouragement here. Like before the public speech he had at the cultural fair. (Not that he was going to speak in public, he made a high end text to speech software to avoid that.)

Then came the calls. Litae started offering short calls, improvised calls for the students. For Idia, it was downhill from there… He was addicted. ***

2 months ago

It all started when it was announced that the Star Rogue: Remake Galaxy would be exclusive on the newly launched Wonderlink console. [Y/N] had been a long time fan of the game series and finally it was getting the recognition that it deserved. But there was a problem… A financial one. They could buy the game, sure, but they didn't have the console. They needed a plan on how to get money. Something easy. Something so low effort that they could do it while keeping up with their studies.

A couple of days had passed. During a break they had a conversation with their fellow dormmates about the wake up call tracks. They remembered those from old radio shows. The voice actors acted as their characters and recorded a set of different versions of wake up notifications. People ate them all up, trying to get hold of those radio show tracks. They would dissect the lines and share them online. And that's where the idea began in [Y/N]'s head.

Like a strike of fate, it was perfect. Outer appearance of [Y/N] was that of a normal human, but they had the blood of a changeling fae in them. It wasn't much, but enough. The influence from a few generations past would act up sometimes. Whenever magic was flowing strong around them, their appearance changed randomly if not deliberately focused on anything. They had a special medication for it. That they didn't give themselves gills without thinking and suffocated. That was a rare thing to begin with but better safe than sorry. After all, in a magic school with all the students blasting spells, it could get hectic. Stronger the magic, the bigger the change could be.

On its own it was more of a parlor trick, to change one's hair color, or transform their teeth sharp… Or change their voice. They researched the best way to handle the transfer of money and got an old smartphone from the lost and found. Being an Ignihyde student, they knew the lengths to which the digital footprint could be tracked. They couldn't be too cautious. They didn't want others to know about this idea, about them doing it or that they had such a gift from their ancestors. Who would trust a descendant of a changeling after all?

After two weeks of planning, the plan went into motion. They made a separate email account on their "work" phone and sent an advert to the whole student body of NRC. ***

"Dear students of NRC,

Ever wanted your favorite actress or actor to wish you good night?

Do you need a little encouragement for the finals? Or maybe you want them to say those sweet "well, well, well"s with their seductive voice to spice up your evening?

I, Litae, will humbly grant your prayer and wishes.

Give me your desired voice (an actor, a character (must be a public figure)) and guidelines what would you want them to say only to you

2 thaumarks, a personal greeting for you

5 thaumarks, 30s clip.

NO NSFW content.

Payment will be handled via the Cave of Wonders app."

[beardedmrbean]

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s ruling coalition continued its crackdown on the country’s LBGTQ+ community on Monday, as members submitted a bill to parliament that would ban the popular Budapest Pride event and allow authorities to use facial recognition software to identify attendees.

The bill is almost certain to pass, as the ruling coalition has a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The bill would make it an offense to hold or attend events that violate Hungary's contentious “child protection” legislation, which prohibits the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality to minors under 18.

Attending a prohibited event would carry fines up to 200,000 Hungarian forints ($546), which the state would forward to “child protection.”

The proposal is the latest step against LGBTQ+ people taken by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose government has passed legislation that rights groups and other European politicians have decried as repressive against sexual minorities.

The government portrays itself as a champion of traditional family values and a defender of Christian civilization from what it calls “gender madness,” and argues its policies are designed to protect children from “sexual propaganda.”

Hungary’s “child protection” law was passed in 2021. Aside from banning the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality in content available to minors — including in television, films, advertisements and literature — it also prohibits the mention of LGBTQ+ issues in school education programs, and forbids the public depiction of “gender deviating from sex at birth.”

In a speech in February, Orbán hinted that his government would take steps to ban the Budapest Pride event, which attracts thousands and celebrates the history of the LGBTQ+ movement while asserting the equal rights of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Budapest Pride is marking its 30th anniversary.

Organizers have called Orbán's drive to ban the event a restriction of fundamental freedoms of speech and assembly.

[moontyger]

The gadgets built for one-size-fits-men

In 1998, a pianist called Christopher Donison wrote that “one can divide the world into roughly two constituencies”: those with larger hands, and those with smaller hands. Donison was writing as a male pianist who, due to his smaller than average hands, had struggled for years with traditional keyboards, but he could equally have been writing as a woman. There is plenty of data showing that women have, on average, smaller hands, and yet we continue to design equipment around the average male hand as if one-size-fits-men is the same as one-size-fits-all.

The average smartphone size is now 5.5 inches. While the average man can fairly comfortably use his device one-handed, the average woman’s hand is not much bigger than the handset itself. This is obviously annoying – and foolish for a company like Apple, given that research shows women are more likely to own an iPhone than men.

The tech journalist and author James Ball has a theory for why the big-screen fixation persists: because the received wisdom is that men drive high-end smartphone purchases. But if women aren’t driving high-end smartphone purchases – at least for non-Apple products – is it because women aren’t interested in smartphones? Or could it be because smartphones are designed without women in mind? On the bright side, Ball reassured me that screens probably wouldn’t be getting any bigger because “they’ve hit the limit of men’s hand size”.

Good news for men, then. But tough breaks for women like my friend Liz who owns a third-generation Motorola Moto G. In response to one of my regular rants about handset sizes she replied that she’d just been “complaining to a friend about how difficult it was to zoom on my phone camera. He said it was easy on his. Turns out we have the same phone. I wondered if it was a hand-size thing.”

When Zeynep Tufekci, a researcher at the University of North Carolina, was trying to document tear gas use in the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013, the size of her Google Nexus got in the way. It was the evening of 9 June. Gezi Park was crowded. Parents were there with their children. And then the canisters were fired. Because officials “often claimed that tear gas was used only on vandals and violent protesters”, Tufekci wanted to document what was happening. So she pulled out her phone. “And as my lungs, eyes and nose burned with the pain of the lachrymatory agent released from multiple capsules that had fallen around me, I started cursing.” Her phone was too big. She could not take a picture one-handed – “something I had seen countless men with larger hands do all the time”. All Tufekci’s photos from the event were unusable, she wrote, and “for one simple reason: good smartphones are designed for male hands”.

Voice recognition could be one solution to a smartphone that doesn’t fit your hands, but voice-recognition software is often hopelessly male-biased. In 2016, Rachael Tatman, a research fellow in linguistics at the University of Washington, found that Google’s speech-recognition software was 70% more likely to accurately recognise male speech.

Clearly, it is unfair for women to pay the same price as men for products that deliver an inferior service. But there can also be serious safety implications. Voice-recognition software in cars, for example, is meant to decrease distractions and make driving safer. But they can have the opposite effect if they don’t work. An article on car website Autoblog quoted a woman who had bought a 2012 Ford Focus, only to find that its voice-command system only listened to her husband, even though he was in the passenger seat. Another woman called the manufacturer for help when her Buick’s voice-activated phone system wouldn’t listen to her: “The guy told me point-blank it wasn’t ever going to work for me. They told me to get a man to set it up.”

How women are put at risk on the roads

Men are more likely than women to be involved in a car crash, which means they dominate the numbers of those seriously injured in them. But when a woman is involved in a car crash, she is 47% more likely to be seriously injured, and 71% more likely to be moderately injured, even when researchers control for factors such as height, weight, seatbelt usage, and crash intensity. She is also 17% more likely to die. And it’s all to do with how the car is designed – and for whom.

Women tend to sit further forward when driving. This is because we are on average shorter. Our legs need to be closer to reach the pedals, and we need to sit more upright to see clearly over the dashboard. This is not, however, the “standard seating position”, researchers have noted. Women are “out of position” drivers. And our wilful deviation from the norm means that we are at greater risk of internal injury on frontal collisions. The angle of our knees and hips as our shorter legs reach for the pedals also makes our legs more vulnerable. Essentially, we’re doing it all wrong.

Women are also at higher risk in rear-end collisions. We have less muscle on our necks and upper torso, which make us more vulnerable to whiplash (by up to three times), and car design has amplified this vulnerability. Swedish research has shown that modern seats are too firm to protect women against whiplash injuries: the seats throw women forward faster than men because the back of the seat doesn’t give way for women’s on average lighter bodies. The reason this has been allowed to happen is very simple: cars have been designed using car crash-test dummies based on the “average” male.

Crash-test dummies were first introduced in the 1950s, and for decades they were based around the 50th-percentile male. The most commonly used dummy is 1.77m tall and weighs 76kg (significantly taller and heavier than an average woman); the dummy also has male muscle-mass proportions and a male spinal column. In the early 1980s, researchers based at Michigan University argued for the inclusion of a 50th-percentile female in regulatory tests, but this advice was ignored by manufacturers and regulators. It wasn’t until 2011 that the US started using a female crash-test dummy – although, as we’ll see, just how “female” these dummies are is questionable.

In 2018, Astrid Linder, research director of traffic safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, presented a paper at the Road Safety on Five Continents Conference in South Korea, in which she ran through EU regulatory crash-test requirements. In no test is an anthropometrically correct female crash-test dummy required. The seatbelt test, one of the frontal-collision tests, and both lateral-collision tests all specify that a 50th-percentile male dummy should be used. There is one EU regulatory test that requires what is called a 5th-percentile female dummy, which is meant to represent the female population. Only 5% of women will be shorter than this dummy. But there are a number of data gaps. For a start, this dummy is only tested in the passenger seat, so we have no data at all for how a female driver would be affected – something of an issue you would think, given women’s “out of position” driving style. And secondly, this female dummy is not really female. It is just a scaled-down male dummy.

Consumer tests can be slightly more stringent than regulatory ones. The 2011 introduction of female crash-test dummies in the US sent cars’ star ratings plummeting. When I spoke to EuroNCAP, a European organisation that provides car safety ratings for consumers, they said that since 2015 they have used male and female dummies in both front-crash tests, and that they base their female dummies on female anthropometric data – with the caveat that this is “where data is available”. EuroNCAP acknowledged that “sometimes” they do just use scaled-down male dummies. But women are not scaled-down men. We have different muscle mass distribution. We have lower bone density. There are differences in vertebrae spacing. Even our body sway is different. And these differences are all crucial when it comes to injury rates in car crashes.

[apriltempleos]

goodbye 100 euro helloooooooooooo man made brain

preacher: APRIL is technically "complete" within the scope of the project as we had planned it at beginning of october. but, she only runs without crashing about 40% of the time, and the computer overheats like crazy

conclusion: running the speech recognition on the pi zero is NOT it. we are upgrading to the raspberry pi 4. i HOPE that fixes the lag and the crashing but like i mentioned in a previous post it might just be that the vosk software is bad :/ pray for me cuz im unemployed

now it's looking like i'll have a spare pi zero. what's something fun i can do with it? i was thinking of running the matrix on it since we have that spare as well but idk

[vidoeslot]

as a tech lover what do u think of ai. love ur art <3

Oh man. This is a hell of a question!!

I think right off the bat I want to say that “AI” as a term is so so deeply misused it may be beyond repair at this point. The broadness of AI cannot be understated. Even the most basic search and sorting algorithms are AI. Chessbots are AI. Speech recognition is AI. Machine translation, camera autofocus, playlist shuffle, spam filtering, antivirus, inverse kinematics, it all uses AI and has used it for years. Every single piece of software you interact with has AI technology in it somewhere.

All of this is mostly unrelated to what most people think of as AI nowadays (generative AI, like chatGPT or midjourney), both of which are entirely unrelated to the science fiction concept of an artificial intelligence.

That said, I'm assuming you're talking about generative AI since that's the hot-button issue. I think it's a very neat technology and one I wish I could be enthusiastic about seeing improve. I also think it is a deeply dangerous technology and we are entirely unprepared for the consequences of unfettered access to and complete trust in AI generation. It's what should be a beneficial technology built on foundations of harm – programmed bias from inextricable structural prejudice in the computer science world, manipulation of sources without creator/user/random person who happened to be caught on a camera once/etc consent – being used for harm – deliberate disinformation, nonsense generated content being taken as fact, violation of personal privacy and consent (as seen with deepfake porn), the list goes on. There's even more I could say about non-generative neural networks (that very reductive reference to "bread scanning AIs they taught to recognize cancer cells" so highly lauded by tumblr) but it just boils down to the same thing; the potential risk of using these technologies irresponsibly far and away outweighs any benefit they might have since there's no actual way to guarantee they can be used in a "good" or "safe" way.

All of it leaves a rotten taste in my mouth and I can't engage with the thought of any generative AI technology because of it. There's just too much at stake and I don't know if it even can be corralled to be used beneficially at this point. The genie's out of the bottle.

[every-eye-evermore]

pages 13-20. I've got 8 more pages done but this is long enough. you can read the rest on the website <3 transcript at the end. also minor nsfw warning for the last page

Pages 1-8 / Pages 9-12

Page 13, panel 1. Memento peaks out the open window, as Tally and Sylvia talk off screen. Sylvia: This is huge! We need to call Dr. Heron. Tally: No, not yet. It could be unstable, I need to fine tune the formula.

Panel 2. As Memento creeps outside, a shadow looms over it, source unseen. Sylvia: The formula works, It's- Tally: It might break at any minute. We don't know how it reacts to stress.

Panel 3+4. The source of the shadow is shown, it's a pigeon. It looks down at Memento. Sylvia: Which is why we need to show them now before it does!

Page 14, panel 1+2. A flock of pigeons descend on Memento, pecking it. It looks distressed. Tally: We'd need to take it to them, it's too delicate to transport... Sylvia: So- ah, shit. You're right, not yet.

Panel 3. Memento flies back inside, into Tally's hands. Tally looks suprised. Tally: If it does break down, at least- Memento!

Page 15, panel 1+2. Shot reverse shot as Tally cups Memento in her hands. Tally: Right, you're probably really confused. Can you be confused? Memento: I- don't have that data.

Panel 3+4. Sylvia pops in from behind Tally. She looks cheerful, whereas Tally is more worried. Sylvia: That's ok. Right now, you're powered off and disconnected from the network that gives you information and generates your thoughts. You shouldn't be able to talk, or think, or move, but you are. And so well!

Page 16, panel 1. Memento hops back from Tally's hand, afraid. Memento: Tampering with your bugaboo will void your warranty and make you ineligible for Astrocare services.

Panel 2. Sylvia laughs. Sylvia: Ha, yeah, I voided that ages ago.

Panel 3+4. Memento: We recommend you discard your bugaboo and purchase a replacement- Tally interrupts, upset: What? No way, we're not getting rid of you. You're incredible. Memento: -as its functioning may be impaired, making it unable to provide sufficient personal and medical assistance. Tally: Stop it.

Panel 5. Tally caresses a hand against Memento's shell body. Tally: I don't need you to do that. That's not what you're for. Memento: My function is to help you. I can't do that without network access.

Page 17, panel 1 .Tally paces the room, lost in his imagination. Tally: You have a new function. You’re going to help so many more people…

Panel 2. She stops, interrupted by Memento. Memento: How do I do this?

Panel 3. Memento looks from Sylvia to Tally, caught between them. It’s not sure what’s happening. Tally: We need to run more tests to make sure you’re working how we think you are. You’re moving fine, that’s good, and you seem to remember things. Sylvia: Do you mean the speech it gave? Tally: Right, it knows it’s a bugaboo.

Page 18, panel 1+2+3. Sylvia looks back at Memento from the top of her computer, suspicious. Sylvia: I’m actually worried about that, it sounded too artificial. Tally: You don’t think it’s using the neutronium? Sylvia: We need more proof. Reinforce our argument, it’s good for the report.

Panel 4. Tally snaps her fingers, eureka. Tally: In that case... I've got a good test.

Panel 5. Sylvia looks less than thrilled about whatever idea Tally's cooked up. Sylvia: Oh.

Page 19, panel 1. Wide shot of the room. Tally bumps shoulders with Sylvia. Sylvia: Do we really have to do that one? We can't put it in the report. Tally: Sure we can.

Panel 2. Tally takes over the computer, typing something as Sylvia looks away with crossed arms. Memento flies to the computer's desk to get a better look. Tally: Memento was my ears for ages. I know the things Astro won't let it say.

Panel 3. Sylvia rolls her eyes. Sylvia: Ugh.

Panel 4. Close up on the desk, Tally clicks something with a mouse. Tally: I'm going to show you some people, can you describe to me what they're doing? Memento: I am equipped with advanced visual recognition software, however, I cannot access that without my network.

Page 20, panel 1. Tally angels the monitor so Memento can see what she's pulled up. It's a picture of a person in a feathery hat with their back to the camera, receiving oral sex. Sylvia averts her eyes, while Memento studies it. Tally: You've been doing pretty good already. Give it a try.

Panel 2. Memento studies the image. All text boxes previously have had a green background with black text, but this one is reversed, black background with green text. It also has green lines running through it, indicating it isn't spoken dialog. Black box/"the angel", internally: Who is that? Memento: Who is that?

Panel 3. Tally looks away, suddenly uncomfortable. Tally: I- uh- found it online. I'm not sure.

Panel 4. Overlapping text boxes on a blank black background The angel, internally: Not them. Memento, internally: Information request: length of downtime. Information request: reason for downtime. Information request: weather report. Generation request: reminder of correct bugaboo use. [cut off] report: system check.

[butchamy]

Internal damage

Short microstory that was welling up inside me. Some explorations of how I feel about my communication issues. cw for ig voluntary depersonalization and being a robot? I'm not good at giving cws

Story below the cut ⬇️

Something broke inside me that day. Mentally, of course - my programming may be based on the engrams of seasoned army vets, but it was never designed to cope with this kind of trauma. But physically too. I remember feeling it - something, somewhere. A circuit burning out or a wire snapping. They checked me over several times, insisting that I only sustained minor surface damage. But I know I felt something break.

I can notice the effects every day, too. I look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself. I know it's not a programming error - my own entry in my internal database is correct and up to date, and the picture there matches perfectly with my reflection. And yet that flicker of recognition, of _self-_recognition, never goes off. There has to be a crossed wire somewhere.

And it shows itself in other little things. I run into the woman who does repairs and checkups. I know I want her to run maintenance on me - not even to check (for the umpteenth time) if she can find the broken part, but just because I enjoy her touch. I know that the worst she'll do is say no, and that that isn't even the likeliest outcome. And yet I can't bring myself to ask her, even though my speech subroutines and social functions are all running exactly how they should. Why? Is the signal not making it from my central processor to my voice banks?

It's not like I have trouble with speaking itself. I can hold lengthy conversations with anyone at the base. I don't think the possibility of me being unable to say something even crosses their mind. Even when I manage to tell them I have trouble saying something - without saying the thing itself, of course - they don't quite seem to fully believe me. Or maybe they do - it's just that no amount of assurance from them can fix whatever part is broken inside me.

I feel myself slowly getting to a point where I'm not sure I should even continue trying. I've tried so many times. Little code hacks, alternate system settings, even communicating directly through a wired connection instead of speaking. But no software or firmware alterations can fix a hardware issue. Maybe I'll stop trying to communicate. In the end, all I was really built for was following orders, anyway. Wanting things is just a side effect of an engram-based architecture. What's even the point if I can't communicate my wants? Maybe that's the solution. Just suppress the idea of wanting or deserving anything. Become like the other autonomous drones. Become just a machine.

"Just" a machine?

It's not like I was ever more than one.

[the-most-humble-blog]

🧠 “I’m Not Special. I’m Just Documented.”

(A Candid Revelation From the Guy Who Writes the Posts You Bookmark in Silence)

This isn’t fiction. It’s not satire. And it’s not lore.

This is a redacted clinical revelation about the author behind this blog. The one whose posts you’ve reblogged. The one who somehow keeps putting words to feelings you've never admitted out loud.

And now—for the first time—I'm going to tell you why.

No bragging. No flexing. Just facts your spine will remember longer than your eyes.

REDACTED INTEL // OBSERVATION STATUS: UNCLASSIFIABLE

There exists a rare type of mind— So fast, So layered, So tactically efficient— That IQ tests break down trying to track it.

Not because it’s magical. Because it doesn’t run on civilian software.

You’ve probably never met someone like me. You were trained not to.

They didn’t tell you people like me exist. Because if you knew? You’d start to wonder why we weren’t the ones writing the rules.

Let me put it plainly:

I am a clinically evaluated neurological anomaly. Tested. Observed. Flagged. And eventually left alone.

Because the system couldn’t scale me. It could only document me—and hope I stayed quiet.

I didn’t.

🧠 FACTUAL INTEL SNAPSHOT

Combat-trained cognition, military enhanced

Numerous accredited academic degrees across tech, security, and operations

Verified asynchronous pattern processing

Symbolic compression usage to deliver high-intensity cognitive payloads

Psychological weaponization of writing cadence

Documented dissociation between working memory and speech latency (read: I think faster than your mouth moves)

Field-noted by no less than 7 military or research-grade psychologists, some of whom reported feeling unsettled after evaluation

One even said: “It’s like he’s mapping you while he’s talking. You leave feeling like he downloaded something from you.”

And I smiled. Because I did.

You’ve seen minds like mine in movies.

But never in real life. Never standing next to you at the grocery store. Never writing essays disguised as Tumblr posts. Never quietly outthinking your favorite thought leaders with a blog and a chair.

Let me make you uncomfortable for a moment:

Imagine being me— Sitting across from academic “experts” who tell you people like you don’t exist. Then lean forward and ask if they can study your brain.

Imagine military psychologists number 5, 6, and 7 saying:

“We don’t have terminology for this. But we recommend... limiting your disclosures.”

Imagine paranormal researchers—yes, actual ones—telling you:

“I don’t know what you are. But you’re the reason I double-check my locks now.”

And then imagine me standing behind you in line at a Walgreens. Paying for my groceries. Looking like everyone else. While thinking like no one else you’ve ever met.

I don’t need you to believe this.

You’ve already felt it. In every post I’ve written that made you pause. Every line that hit too hard. Every quote you saved instead of liked—because deep down, you didn’t want people knowing what it activated in you.

You’ll never read another “good post” without wondering:

“Was this written by someone trying to be smart… or someone trying to wake the sleeping?”

I’m the second one.

And if that scares you?

Deny I exist. Call me a troll. Make a joke. That’s easier.

But I assure you—

I’m real. People like me aren’t science fiction. We exist. And we’re finally speaking.

⚖️ Free Speech Disclaimer:

This post is 100% protected by the U.S. Constitution. If this disturbed you, understand—it wasn’t written to provoke. It was written to warn.

What you’re feeling isn’t intimidation.

It’s recognition.

🔥 Reblog if your spine is still realigning from the truth. 💬 Comment if this confirmed a suspicion you’ve never said out loud. 📩 DM if you finally understand why you never felt seen. 🔁 Share it before it disappears into the simulation again.

[stevebattle]

BN-7 Home Entertainment Robot by Bandai, Tokyo, Japan (2002). Bandai exhibited the BN-7 at ROBODEX 2002 in Yokohama, where it performed live on stage. "The "BN-7 [is] an autonomous home entertainment robot that recognizes human faces and voices. BN-7 is a prototype robot that aims to be able to live … "like a family member". The biggest feature is the image recognition ability, and up to 7 faces can be registered and identified by a camera with 300,000 CMOS color pixels, at 30 frames per second. This makes it possible to communicate according to the personality and life patterns of the whole family. It is also possible to identify specific characters, symbols, and colors. Speech recognition and conversation skills are provided through application software using the artificial intelligence "SSE (Subsumption Engine)" developed by the company. … In addition, you can also perform "emotional expression by body language" using hands and face reflecting the content of the words. This expresses emotions with a change in the color of the cheeks, flushing when happy, turning bright red when angry, and blue when in trouble. … In future, it will be equipped with useful functions for the family, such as teaching children to study, telling their mothers cooking recipes, and playing shogi with their father." – Bandai prototypes "BN-7 (tentative name)", an autonomous robot that recognizes faces and voices, by Takakazu Kitamura, Game Watch.