narration

In Charlie Kaufman’s puppet animation Anomalisa, everyone looks and speaks the same. It’s as though a scene in an earlier Kaufman-penned film, Being John Malkovich, in which Malkovich surveys a restaurant from his table and notices everyone – waiters, diners, perhaps even a passing dog – have his face and voice, has gone global.No one is immune: at one point, the mouth of the narrator, a motivational speaker called Michael Stone, falls from his face into his hands and chatters away all by itself. The guru’s improving…

Photo: OpturaDesign (Shutterstock)Microsoft launched the Seeing AI app on Android devices Monday, expanding the free app that narrates the world to millions more blind and low-vision users. Seeing AI is now available for free in 18 languages on the Google Play Store with plans to expand to 36 languages next year.“Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police” | AI UnlockedSeeing AI first launched for IOS in 2017 allowing users to point their camera and hear a description of what it sees. The app identifies currency, reads books,…

Apple Books, the company's application that allows users to read Ebooks on their devices, has announced support for an AI-enabled feature to turn titles into audiobooks. The “digital narration” feature will make the production of audiobooks more accessible by reducing costs for publishers and authors, according to Apple. The company will use AI-enabled voice synthesis to read books and convert them into audio. The feature is currently available for English romance and fiction books and will later be rolled out to…

When you browse Apple Books for your next audiobook, you might come across a few titles with a note that says they were "Narrated by Apple Books." That's because the tech giant has released a catalogue of titles that make use of its new AI-powered digital narration service. The company said the service uses the advanced speech synthesis technology it developed "to produce high-quality audiobooks from an ebook file."  According to The Guardian, Apple approached independent publishers who may be interested in teaming up for…

Instagram has rolled out a new 2022 Recap template for Reels, allowing you to share some of your best moments throughout the year. The template is already live on the app and can be found at the top of your feed. Other online services like Spotify and BeReal also offer similar ways to look back on the content you have consumed and shared over the past year. Instagram's 2022 Recap Reel offers a template that can be customised with at least three photos and videos.The social media platform announced the new template via…

YouTube is lifting another TikTok feature. It recently announced voiceover narration for Shorts, which itself is a TikTok clone. The feature lets you add commentary or other sounds to existing videos and has been available on TikTok for a while now.Voiceover narrations are useful in various situations. You can add instructions or explanations to cooking tutorials or other guides after you have recorded the video. It also lets you add voice reactions, comments, and more to your YouTube Shorts. If you make music, this…

What's the best way for YouTube Shorts to take on TikTok? Apparently, it's by continually copying its popular competitor. Yesterday, YouTube announced (via TechCrunch) that it would be adding voiceover narrations to Shorts on iOS. It'll let you add your own commentary on top of existing videos with just a few taps. That's simple enough, but it's also something that TikTok has offered for a while, and it brings to mind Instagram's repeated attempts to copy TikTok's core features.  Previously, YouTube also lifted TikTok's…

Pixar gives Lightyear a new voice in Chris Evans (replacing Tim Allen). This story is set millions of light-years from our planetary home. The screenplay sets off with “Toy Story” references before Buzz begins to set-up his own dramatic pathThe ‘Toy Story’ hero Buzz Lightyear’s advent into solo territory isn’t one to warm the cockles of your heart. Pixar has done a fabulous job on the animation tech front but the story-telling craft is just too woebegone to be entertaining. Directed and co-written by Angus MacLane who…