YouTube has reportedly started rolling out a new AI-empowered translation feature for its content creators, one that will automatically redub a video’s contents into one of nine languages without changing the speaker’s voice.
According to a post from X user @levelsio, “YouTube will now auto dub videos in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese” and “will use AI to take the original voice but change the language.”
The new feature will arrive to creators’ channels in the coming weeks but will only be available to newly crafted content, rather than existing videos, to start.
I said podcasts but it's happening on YouTube first:
YouTube will now auto dub videos in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Hindi, Indonesian and Japanese
The dubs will use AI to take the original voice but change the language (like @lexfridman's podcast… https://t.co/1awdnDF8lk pic.twitter.com/KhelUxtLZL
— @levelsio (@levelsio) November 21, 2024
The auto-dubbing feature was first announced in September at the company’s “Made on YouTube” event. At the time, a YouTube spokesperson explained, “in the coming months we’ll be expanding our AI powered dubbing tool, formerly known as ‘Aloud,’ to hundreds of thousands of creators,” as well as adding additional languages beyond the English, Spanish, and Portuguese available for beta users. “Once creators have access, their videos will be automatically dubbed upon upload, with the ability to opt out if they so choose,” the spokesperson explained.
YouTube is not alone in its AI translation efforts. In 2023, Spotify announced a similar feature that reportedly creates “a more authentic listening experience that sounds more personal and natural than traditional dubbing.”
Upon its release, users were limited to translations between English and Spanish, though French and German have since been added. Meta has also recently released a “universal language translator” that it calls SeamlessM4T and is capable of swapping between any of more than 100 languages. Its abilities also extend to text-to-voice and text-to-text translations.
These new translation AIs could help content creators of all sizes reach new international audiences that they otherwise would be unable to. Of course, the technology could also backfire due to its tendency to hallucinate facts and responses. If it mistranslated your content into a language you don’t already speak, it’d be hard know about the mistake before viewer complaints started rolling in.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.