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500 MB Nyheder Direkte fra Internet 2
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500 MB nyheder direkte fra internet CD 2.iso
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1994-09-21
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8KB
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136 lines
SPEECH
Computers have become quite good at speaking.
You can also buy a talking car that tells you when it needs an
oil change, a talking bathroom scale that makes cynical comments
about how much your weight's gone up since yesterday, and many
other talking devices. You can even buy Coke from a talking
vending machine that invites you to deposit your coins and then
says ``Thank you''.
Talking watch
Whenever I want to find out the time, I just press a button on
my wrist watch, and its computer voice proudly proclaims the time
in perfect English. Whenever I get lonely at night and want
somebody to talk to me, I just press the watch's button and
thrill to the sound of its soothing voice.
It also acts as the world's most humane alarm clock. Instead of
giving an awful ring, its human voice says, ``Attention, please!
It's 7:30AM.'' Then it plays some jazzed up Bach.
If I'm still sleepy and ignore the alarm, five minutes later it
will say, ``Attention, please! It's 7:35AM. Please hurry.'' It
will also subject me to some more Bach. It will keep reminding me
every five minutes, until I'm awake enough to turn off the alarm.
You can buy the Vox Watch at Radio Shack for $39.95.
Reading to the blind
The most impressive talking device ever invented is the
Kurzweil Reading Machine, which reads books to the blind.
It looks like a photocopying machine. Just lay a book on top of
the machine, and the machine reads the book to you, even if the
book is laid down crookedly and has dirt on it and has multiple
columns and photos and uses weird type.
When it was invented many years ago, it used to cost $50,000.
Then the price dropped to $20,000. Then the price dropped even
lower, but it still costs more than the average blind person can
afford. To use such a machine, you must either be rich or live
near a library owning the machine.
Most blind people who are computerized use cheaper devices
instead: an IBM PC clone supplemented by a scanner, voice
synthesizer, and cheap software.
Can computers listen?
Though computers are good talkers, they're not good listeners.
No computer's been invented yet that will replace your
secretary and let you dictate a letter to it. The computer
devices currently on the market have tiny vocabularies, require
you to pause after every word, and need to be ``trained'' to
understand your accent.
MUSIC
Computerized music is advancing rapidly. Now you can sit down
at a portable piano-style keyboard (light enough to carry in one
hand), bang out a tune, feed the tune to a computer, and have the
computer edit out your errors, play the tune back using the tone
qualities of any instrument you wish (or even a whole orchestra),
and print the score on paper.
Such developments are shaking up the entire music industry.
When you watch a TV commercial or movie, the background music
that sounds like a beautiful orchestra or band is often produced
by just a single person sitting at a computerized music
synthesizer. The imitation of orchestral instruments is so exact
that even professional musicians can't hear the difference. As a
result, whole orchestras of musicians are now unemployed.
Music synthesizers come in two categories. One kind's cheap
($25 to $500) and easy to use, but produces sounds that are
tinny. The other kind produces beautiful sounds but costs a lot
($500 to $20,000) and is harder to learn to master. Programmers
are trying to meld those two categories together. I wish they'd
hurry up!
Ultimate Music Machine
Musicians, programmers,
and engineers are working together to create the Ultimate Music
Machine, which makes all other musical instruments obsolete. You
can buy all its parts at your local computer and music stores,
but the software and hardware that connects the parts is awkward.
I expect some company will eventually build an assembled version
that you just plug into the wall for immediate fun.
Part 1: the tone-quality
creator The Ultimate Music Machine can imitate all other musical
instruments. To make it imitate an instrument, play a few notes
of that instrument into the machine's microphone. The machine
makes a digital recording of the instrument, analyzes the
recording, and stores the analysis on a 3½-inch floppy disk.
The machine's analysis
is quite sophisticated. For example, it realizes that a violin
note has a vibrato (because the violinist's finger wiggles), that
each piano note begins with a bang and ends with a hum, and that
the piano's bass notes sound ``fatter'' than the treble notes
(because the bass notes are made from different kinds of
strings).
The machine lets you
edit the analysis, to create totally new tone qualities, such as
``piolin'' (which is a compromise between a piano and a violin).
When you buy the
machine, it comes with recordings of the most popular
instruments, and lets you add your own and edit them. It also
lets you use fundamental waveforms (such as sine waves, square
waves, and triangle waves), which act as building blocks for
inventing sounds that are wilder.
Part 2: the note creator
The machine includes a piano-style keyboard (with black and white
notes on it). To feed the machine a melody, tap the melody on the
keyboard. You can also play chords. The machine notices which
notes you strike the hardest, so it records your accents.
The machine includes a
pitch-bend dial, which you turn to make the notes slide up the
scale, like a slide trombone.
If you're not good at
the keyboard, use the machine's screen instead, which displays a
musical staff and lets you move notes onto the staff by using a
mouse. You can also use the mouse to edit any errors you made on
the keyboard, and to create repetitions and increase the tempo.
If you fear mice and
keyboards, just sing into the machine's microphone. The machine
notices which notes you've sung and records them.
If you're too lazy to
create a melody or harmony, the machine creates its own. Its
built-in computer analyzes your favorite music, notices its
rhythms, note transitions, and harmonic structures, and then
composes its own music in the same style.
Part 3: output The
machine plays the editing music through stereo speakers. As the
music plays, the complete score moves across the screen, in
traditional music notation. The machine also prints the score on
paper. Yes, the machine prints a complete score showing how you
sang into the mike or tickled the keys!
Vendors The Ultimate
Music Machine is built from music synthesizers. The most popular
synthesizers are made by four Japanese companies: Casio, Roland,
Yamaha, and Korg. Their synths cost from $25 to $3000 and contain
tiny computers. For extra computing power, attach a Macintosh
computer by using a Musical Instrument Digital Interface cable
(MIDI cable). To print pretty scores cheaply, add Deluxe Music
Construction Set, a Mac program published by Electronics Arts for
under $50.