The Dell Laptop Buying Guide 2026: Which XPS or Alienware Laptop Should You Buy? The Dell Laptop Buying Guide UK: Which Dell Laptop Should You Buy? When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Text-to-speech, transcription, and podcast tools are separate tools, each with their own separate paid subscription. If you want to consolidate, take a look at AnyToSpeech .

Sonos' new voice assistant is launching in early access on November 6 Sonos' new voice assistant is launching in early access on November 6 The company is hoping to not repeat its previous app redesign debacle. Sonos has announced that its new voice assistant, Sonos 27voice, will be available to test in early access on November 6. The company is introducing access to the assistant as part of an update rolling out this week. A revamped voice assistant was one of several new features and design tweaks the company planned to include in its new underlying Sonos 27 software . When it originally introduced Sonos 27 in September, Sonos said its new voice assistant could be used for music and mood curation and mostly focused its attention on its platform's support for third-party AI assistants like ChatGPT and custom agents.

After testing multiple models, I'm convinced voice control belongs on the family calendar. Greenlight's Family Hub shows why. I set up a digital wall calendar at a friend's house a couple of months ago. Her first question was one I've constantly asked myself as I test these devices in my own home: "Does it have a voice assistant?" It feels like the one thing missing from these devices.

Using the mics, translation earbuds pick up the speaker's voice. High-end translation earbuds use different solutions to separate a voice from background noise. For example, the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro uses eight microphones, two bone conduction sensors and a specialized AI model to separate voices. Some others use dual or beamforming mics to achieve similar results. After the voice is captured, the next step is audio processing.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Trending Now Mashable Selects Creator Playbook Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series The company responded to accusations that it created a spy network in people's homes. Electronics giant LG has been under fire over the past few days after a viral two-hour video report by Gamers Nexus warned that LG's TVs surreptitiously record users' audio, even when the screen is turned off, as well as collecting details about networked devices, location data, and wireless network information. Since the video's release, dozens of reaction videos have followed, with titles like How to Stop Smart TV Spying and LG Isn't the Only TV Company Spying on You, from reputable channels such as Linus Tech Tips and RTINGS, respectively. In the wake of the video, LG has formally denied the claims on various news networks and in a statement on its website . Titled Understanding Privacy on LG Smart TVs, LG unambiguously denies the central accusations of the Gamers Nexus video.

South Korean consumer-electronics company LG has denied allegations that its smart televisions record ambient conversations, listen while on standby and store recordings for later transmission. On Wednesday, the company told Al Jazeera that voice data is only recorded when a user presses and holds the voice button on the TV remote or activates its "Hi LG" wake word, after the user has activated the Far-Field voice recognition feature. "Other than these instances, the TVs do not collect or record ambient conversations," LG said, adding that voice data is only processed via explicit user commands. "The audio is immediately deleted if the wake word is not recognised," the company said. The statement comes after a 135-minute investigative report released on Monday by a popular tech media outlet and YouTube channel, Gamers Nexus, with Level1Techs and independent security researchers.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency will introduce an artificial intelligence-powered system to automatically transcribe emergency calls with the aim of streamlining record-keeping and easing the workload on staff amid rising ambulance dispatches. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency plans to launch a model project in fiscal 2027 to utilize artificial intelligence in the handling of 119 emergency calls for firefighting, rescue and ambulance services. The agency will introduce an AI-powered speech recognition system that automatically transcribes emergency calls with the aim of streamlining the process of recording call details and easing the burden on staff amid a growing number of ambulance dispatches. Related expenses will be included in the agency's fiscal 2027 budget request. The project will utilize so-called "vertical AI," which specializes in specific fields. The AI system will also be equipped with a function that advises staff on necessary actions according to the content of each call.

Google is making it easier for people to support their favorite publications by introducing a new "Preferred Sources" button webmasters can add to their websites. "When readers click this button, it adds the site as a Preferred Source on Google and immediately directs them back to where they left off on the publisher's page," Google explains. After clicking the button, you'll see the publication appear more frequently Google Search, including in Top Stories, AI Overviews and AI Mode. The button formalizes something publishers, including Engadget, had been independently adding their websites for a while now. Even with referral traffic from Google declining in recent years due to products like AI Overviews and AI Mode, the company's search engine remains an important source of revenue for many media outlets.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. While you can set the Gemini app to create images and videos without a visible watermark, hidden watermarks and metadata will remain. On a week when AI watermarking is a hot topic, Google has just announced that Gemini will let you drop the visible watermarks from created images and videos. Of course, "visible" is the key word here, with Google exec Josh Woodward explaining in a social post that invisible SynthID watermarks and metadata will remain embedded in created Gemini images. "We're striking a balance here between creative control and safety," Woodard wrote on X, adding that the option to drop the visible watermark is available for the Nano Banana image model, the Omni model for videos, and Lyria for generated music.

Google's Pixel Camera chief, Isaac Reynolds, thinks year-to-year upgrades to smartphone cameras are still critical, even though some detractors think they're passé. "A person who is a casual photographer and desperately wants to be a hobbyist--they're never going to break that ceiling unless you give them the tools, he says. The features that others call'meh'--for some people, those features are life-changing. Take the 30X Super Res Zoom on the Pixel 7 Pro from 2022, which uses machine learning to stitch together multiple frames in a digitally zoomed photo to give you a result that's much sharper than you're used to. Reynolds says that because of this feature, Google now sees people using 30X zoom dramatically more than before. The new Pixel 11 Pro, announced today, can zoom up to 120X, though in addition to the digital stitching, it relies on AI-generated pixels to fill in some details. Reynolds says maybe having that capability is enough to get someone interested in, say, wildlife photography. After experimenting on their phone, they'd be ready to invest in a professional camera and a big zoom lens. "There's a reason I work on low light and zoom every single year, he says.