Tech Advisor | Best free text-to-speech software Tech Advisor ... free text-to-speech programs available right now is Balabolka. This diminutive download taps into the existing Microsoft Speech Program that is included in Windows. Using the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI) it's able to harness the conversion software ... |
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Best free text-to-speech software - Tech Advisor
Sacramento Bee | Google to serve next version of Android as 'Oreo" Sacramento Bee Oreo boasts several new features, including the ability to respond to notifications directly on a phone's home screen and the ability to access apps without installing them on a device. The free software is scheduled to be released this fall, most ... Android Oreo: 10 things you need to know Android 8.0 Oreo officially unveiled, here's when you can expect to receive it |
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Google to serve next version of Android as 'Oreo" - Sacramento Bee
Enlarge / Look, it's really hard to find stock imagery for "evolutionary algorithm."
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With 1.3 billion daily users, the Facebook site and its apps are the most-used pieces of software in the world.Only a handful of software companies have ascended to a similar echelon of ubiquity, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple. For better or worse, that is the world we now live in, where a large percentage our waking hours is spent interacting with softwareand Facebook leads the pack, with the average userspending 50 minutes per day mostly watching videos and liking photos of babies.Television is the only leisure activity in the worldthat receives more attention than Facebook. And don't forget that Facebook now owns Instagram and WhatsApp, too.
It is understandable, then, that Facebook cares a lot about the quality of its software. If Facebook pushes out a new version of its Android app with a crashing bug, millions of users could be affected. Those users might be inclined toswitch to another social network, or even worse: put down their phone and interact with the real world. The net effect is the same, either way: Facebook's share of your attention, and thus potential revenue, decreases.
That's why Facebook has some advanced bug-finding toolsincluding a devilishly clever dynamic analysis tool, initially devised by students at University College London and then acquired and further developed by Facebook's London office. This is the first time they've shown the inner workings of this new tool, dubbed Sapienz, to the press.
Eachtechnique serves a different purpose, and a big software company would usually use both. Static analysis is perfect for formally verifying that an algorithm works as intended, or for highlighting bad code that might allow for a buffer overflow orother security vulnerability. Dynamic analysis is better at finding the gnarly edge cases that cause crashes. Humans can manually perform both analyses, of course, but computers are obviously a lot quicker when it comes to testing millions of possible inputs.
Facebook's static analyser is called Infer. The company open-sourced the toolin 2013, and a lot of big names (Uber, Spotify, Mozilla) use it. There isn't a whole lot to say about it, other than it seems to be very popular and effective; download it today!
Sapienz has three main tricks up its sleeve.First, it uses a search-based evolutionary algorithm, rather than a random or model-based approach. Second, the fitness function that guides how the algorithm evolves is incredibly complex: there are multiple objectives, entwined by Pareto optimality, that must be fulfilled for each evolutionary change to be a success. And third, Facebook can run Sapienz on its One World test platform, which lets engineers find crashing bugs on hundreds of different Android devices simultaneously. (Sapienz only supportsAndroid apps currently, though there are plans to expand to otherplatforms and app types.)
The key to a successful evolutionary algorithm is its fitness function. I'm not your college computer science lecturer, so I won't go into too much detail, but a fitness function essentially looks at the result of a test case, and decides how close that result is to a desired outcome/objective. The results that don't fulfil the fitness function are tied up in a burlap sack and thrown in the river; the good ones are bred together, to form the basis of the next round of testing.
According to Facebook's engineers, most of their secret sauce is in Sapienz's fitness function, which has three objectives: to test as many of the app's methods and statements as possible, find as many crashes as possible, and minimise the length of the test sequences required to cause crashes. The first two are all about producing better, crash-free software; the third is to improve the efficiency of the system, so that a decent number of crashes can be found in a reasonable amount of time.
These three objectives are assessed by the fitness function for Pareto efficiency. That is, one objective isn't more important than the others: if the evolutionary algorithm is only producing long test sequences, but they're providing good coverage and finding lots of crashes, then those long tests will be kept alive. Over time the systemtries to hit Pareto optimality: where it's impossible to improve one objective without negatively impacting another. So, in this case, the algorithm would attempt to reduce the test sequence length without reducing coverage or the fault revelation.
Sapienz also strays slightly across the border into static analysis: it attempts to reverse-engineer the app (an Android APK in this case) to pull out some strings, which it then uses as natural-language inputs when testing begins. "We found this seeding to be particularly useful when testing apps that require a lot of user-generated content, e.g., Facebook, because it enables Sapienz to post and comment in an apparently more human-meaningful way," say the researchers.
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Facebook's evolutionary search for crashing software bugs - Ars Technica UK
Perceptive Devices, a company specializing in hands-free and voice-free electronicdevices,is partnering with eye tracking device makerTobii Dynavoxto develop a new generation of hands-free and voice-free control technology for those with physical disabilities.
Users of Tobii Dynavox products will now have the option of controlling their devices with Perceptive Devices head mouse and gesture control technology with face tracker, smile clicker, and dwell clicker. This enables pointing, clicking, dragging, and scrolling by using simple eye gazes, smiles, and gentle gestures.
Perceptive DevicesSmyle Mousesoftware application is a next-generation head mouse technology that allows hands-free and voice-free control of Microsoft Windows devices by using a regular webcam to track users head motions and facial gestures. The softwaretranslatesgestures into mouse commands for responsive mouse control.
Smyle Mouse users can initiate clicking, scrolling, and dragging, with simple smiles by using the smile gesture alone or combined with head motions, other facial expressions, and eye gaze.
Our technology can be very useful to millions of people around the world who experience difficulties in using their hands due to disabilities such as spinal cord injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis, ALS, cerebral palsy and carpal tunnel syndrome, Uday Parshionikar, founder and CEO of Perceptive Devices, said in apress release. Pairing our facial expressions based head mouse control with Tobiis gold standard eye tracking technology is a match made in heaven for users looking for a simple yet powerful hands-free and voice-free control solution.
A global leader in eye tracking technology, Tobii Dynavox, a subsidiary of Swedish technology company Tobii AB, manufactures a range of electronic devices, software, and accessories, including desktop, laptop, and tablet computers designed explicitly for control by eye movement or touchscreen for users with special needs.
Under the terms of the partnership, Tobii Dynavox will begin installing a full version of Smyle Mouse on all of its I-Series products (such as itsI-15+ and I-12+ products) in October 2017. A trial version of Smyle Mouse will be bundled with Tobii DynavoxsIndi productsand with its eye tracking technology.
A 14-day free trial of Smyle Mouse software for devices running Microsoft Windows 7 or above can be downloaded at: https://smylemouse.com.
Sempra Energy bids $9.45 billion for Oncor
SAN DIEGO Sempra Energy is buying Texas power transmitter Oncor for $9.45 billion in cash, wresting it away from Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway.
Sempra said Monday that it also will pick up $9.35 billion of the companys debt. To gain possession of Oncor, Sempra will acquire the reorganized Energy Future Holdings Corp. Energy Future entered bankruptcy in 2014, saddled with more than $40 billion in debt caused by cratering energy prices.
Berkshire Hathaway said last month that it would buy Oncor for $9 billion. Hedge fund Elliott Management, which owns a significant portion of Oncors debt, opposed Berkshires takeover bid, saying it wasnt enough. A spokesman said Elliott supports Sempras bid because it will provide more to Oncor and Energy Futures creditors.
Google dubs next version of Android as Oreo
SAN FRANCISCO A coming update to Googles Android software finally has a delectable name. The next version will be known as Oreo, extending Googles tradition of naming each version after a sweet treat.
Google anointed the software Monday after spending the past few months referring to it as Android O.
Oreo boasts several new features, including the ability to respond to notifications directly on a phones home screen and the ability to access apps without installing them on a device.
The free software release is scheduled for the fall.
Interest rates mixed at Treasury weekly auction
WASHINGTON Interest rates on short-term Treasury bills were mixed in Mondays auction with rates on three-month bills declining while rates on six-month bills were unchanged.
The Treasury auctioned $39 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.000 percent, down from 1.015 percent last week. Another $33 billion in six-month bills was auctioned at a discount rate of 1.115 percent, unchanged from last week.
Separately, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year Treasury bills edged up to 1.24 percent last Thursday, up slightly from 1.21 percent on Aug. 11.
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Total is buying Maersk Oil for $7.45 billion
COPENHAGEN, Denmark French oil company Total is strengthening its position in the North Sea with the acquisition of Danish conglomerate AP Moller-Maersks oil business for $7.45 billion.
The sale of Maersk Oil is part of Maersks major restructuring, which will see it focus on its core transport and logistics arms.
As part of the deal, the company will get $4.95 billion worth of Total shares. The French company also will assume some $2.5 billion worth of Maersk Oil debt.
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