While most voice assistants offer some variety in terms of voices that they can speak to you with, they have a number of shortcomings. First, they often default to a female voice that can reinforce sexist stereotypes. In addition to that, most of the voice options fail to fully capture the full spectrum of gender identity and leaves some users feeling left out. Q just might change that.
Q is a gender-neutral digital voice. Created by a team of technologists from Copenhagen Pride and Vice Media’s creative agency Virtue, Q is a genderless voice that aims to solve some of the shortcomings of current voice assistants while propelling a conversation about how technology can both perpetuate and address some of the longstanding biases that are engrained in us by societal factors.
The creation of Q started by recording a few dozen voices from people across the gender spectrum. They captured male, female, transgender, and nonbinary voices. Research has found that male voices tend to be in the range of 85 to 180 hertz, while female voices land between 140 to 255 Hertz. Somewhere in the 145 and 175 Hertz range is generally perceived as gender neutral.
While the original plan was to layer the voices together to create a voice that would land in the sweet spot, the team behind the project focused on a single person’s voice that landed nearly perfectly between what most people would perceive as masculine or feminine. A bit of tweaking and surveying of people for feedback and the team landed on the right voice for Q.
It’s worth noting that for the time being, Q isn’t available to be your voice assistant of choice. It is currently limited to an online interface. Interested parties can interact with Q by visiting www.genderlessvoice.com. However, it’s more of a conversation piece designed to get people thinking about voice assistants and technology in new ways. Q makes a point about representation in tech and should urge companies to listen to more voices when designing its products. A nonbinary voice may make more sense for a voice assistant than a gendered alternative anyway, seeing as A.I. doesn’t have a gender.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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