@w7voa Jeffires lost 1 vote. do you know who and why?
@Alrescha @sixcolors please. Tim Cook says many things. what he does is a different matter. and Apple is absolutely not going to start a service if it doesn't intend to make money on it.
@Alrescha @sixcolors lol. Apple is not charity. they are not doing **anything** without trying to make a profit. They have been particularly ruthless about it lately.
I don't have to be an Apple insider to know that.
@Alrescha @sixcolors I agree with this but I was talking about Apple's profits. they intend to make money on this and don't see how they are going to.
@sixcolors
>Apple is also doing quality checks
so turnaround time is listed at a couple months.
Interesting. this makes sense but I do wonder how #Apple intends to make money on this then. Quality checks on #audiobooks are labor intensive and take time. if an #audiobook is 10 hours long then it will take at least 10 hours (more if there are problems) for someone to check it. This costs money. On the other hand vast majority of these audiobooks will sell 0 copies. and unlike the App Store which has a similar issue this will not be offset by popular books with a lot of downloads. any book that can sell in meaningful numbers will have a human narrator and not an AI one.
>Finally, there’s the question of the impact on audiobook narrators
I don't see this being competition for #audiobook narrators. certainly not at the current AI narration quality levels. I searched for "Narrated by Apple Books" in Apple Books. A lot of #audiobooks come up and you can listen to samples on all of them. I would recommend trying. IMO while the quality of AI narration is a big step up from the previous text-to-speech, it's still **far inferior** to human narration. there is no voice acting at all, It's all very monotone. I am an avid audiobook reader but I would not listen to any audiobooks so narrated. Apple is right that is aimed and indie authors who can't afford to hire professional narrators. I don't believe anybody who wants to sell m ore than single digit numbers of audiobooks will go with the AI option.
I warned in November about multiple Twitter breaches (plural), hours before my account was suspended. Multiple threat actors, MULTIPLE breaches - all related to the same contact-sync feature. My warnings have been proven correct. https://9to5mac.com/2022/11/25/massive-twitter-data-breach/
Jill Barber - All My Dreams
I think I mentioned before that Jill Barber is my favorite Canadian singer. She deserves to be better known.
#FavoriteMusic 50/
"...Elon Musk issued an edict to the journalism community. Obey me ... or you will be banned from posting on Twitter."
"This should have been a pivotal moment in media history — an inflection point when journalists realized how dangerous it is to put their fates in the hands of people who claim to revere free speech but use their power to control it...thanks to a combination of journalistic cowardice, inertia and calculation, business as usual prevailed." --@dangillmor
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/04/journalists-and-others-should-leave-twitter-heres-how-they-can-get-started/
@SocraticEthics This is **really** good news. finally some movement on supplying #Ukraine with modern IFVs. Long overdue but better late than never. And it seem that US prevailed on Germany and France to do the same.
@pustam_egr I think he confused math with physics on that one
2022 ended with a shiver, but the start of 2023 broke a sweat. 🥶🥵
This weather whiplash may have been caused by changes in the polar vortex, the band of strong westerly winds over the Arctic. Details: https://go.nasa.gov/3XaD4iK
#NASAEarth
Top Russia analyst @Stanovaya@twitter.com: ‘Putin’s Christmas ceasefire fits into Putin’s twisted logic where he is the ‘good guy.’ … But this is partly a consequence of NYE Makiivka attack that killed dozens of Russian mobilized troops. He doesn’t want something like that for Christmas.’
https://t.me/liveukraine_eng/4065 ⚠️🇩🇪Germany has provided Ukraine with another military aid package, according to an updated list on the government's website.
It was sent to Ukraine:
📍20 missile systems of 70 mm caliber on pickup trucks with missiles;
📍30 drone detection systems;
📍8 reconnaissance drones;
📍7 tracked and remotely operated infantry vehicles for support missions;
📍63 pickup trucks;
(More) #Ukraine #News #War #Russia
@davemark thanks. that NYT article does clarify things. The constitution doesn't say anything about the Spekaer except that there should be one (I checked) but there is an 1789 law that says that the speaker has to be elected first before the speaker swears in all the other members and any other business can be conducted.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title2-section25&num=0&edition=prelim
Refugee from twitter. I am into math, tech, clean energy, EVs, COVID info, books, movies, music.
Based in Toronto. Support Ukraine.
Boosts=endorsements twitter:https://twitter.com/heridfan