Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding on Thursday said that it plans to spin-off of its cloud computing unit and that its logistics and grocery units would begin exploring initial public offerings, as the e-commerce firm kickstarts a restructuring process of its businesses aimed at spurring growth

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 21, 2023--

Spotify has cloned the voices of its top podcasters and will use them to translate podcasts into other languages. Presenters including Lex Fridman and Kristen Bell now have podcasts on Spotify in which they interview their guests in Spanish – despite those conversations never actually having happened. Instead, Spotify took those podcasts and used a range of artificial intelligence technologies to create a match of their voice. They then translated the podcasts and used the voice clone to read them back out, giving an interview that is in another language but nonetheless sounds as if it was being spoken by the actual presenters. The company hopes that the technology means that people can listen to natural-sounding podcasts that were originally English – even if they do not speak the language. The technology is available for a limited number of podcasts in Spanish already, and Spotify will collect them in a devoted part of the app, and will also appear as a suggestion when someone starts listening to a relevant podcast. Soon it expects to use the technology for French and German, and will apply it to more podcasts. “By matching the creator’s own voice, Voice Translation gives listeners around the world the power to discover and be inspired by new podcasters in a more authentic way than ever before,” said Ziad Sultan, Spotify’s vice president of personalisation, in a statement. “We believe that a thoughtful approach to AI can help build deeper connections between listeners and creators, a key component of Spotify’s mission to unlock the potential of human creativity.” Spotify has already rolled out a number of other AI-powered features, including its AI DJ, which not only chooses songs but uses an artificial voice to introduce them. Like that AI DJ, the new translation technology is built on tools provided by OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. It said the current techologies are “just the beginning”. “The creator and audience feedback from the pilot will provide important insights for future expansion, iterations, and innovations,” Spotify said in its announcement, and it said it would “continue exploring new ways to overcome barriers to storytelling”. Read More Tesla robot shown practising yoga Meta plans to develop ‘sassy robot’ chatbot for young users, report says Nasa just delivered a piece of a distant asteroid to Earth

Three years after Silicon Valley companies led the charge for embracing remote work in the early days of the pandemic, the tech industry is now escalating the fight to bring employees back into the office -— and igniting tensions with staff in the process.

Stablecoin issuer Tether has added Britannia Bank & Trust, a privately-held bank operating in the Bahamas, to process

The fun and playful ‘P for Papas’ trend will have you grooving and singing along with your kitty, making for some adorable and heartwarming content

When we reviewed the Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi System back in 2021, we were impressed with

Economy Minister Robert Habeck indicated Siemens Energy AG has reached an accord with the German government and other

Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. agreed to acquire NexTier Oilfield Solutions Inc. in an all-stock deal worth $1.9 billion that

Matt Roloff went for a regular esophagus checkup when doctors revealed he has a stomach complication

As Europe embarks on a wholesale review of the world’s biggest ESG investing rulebook, an executive at Deutsche

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) -Britain set out principles designed to prevent generative AI models like ChatGPT from being dominated