Apple’s new audiobook narration service uses AI voices

When you browse Apple Books for your next audiobook, you might come across a few titles with a note that says they were “Narrated by Apple Books.” That’s because the tech giant has released a catalogue of titles that make use of its new AI-powered digital narration service. The company said the service uses the advanced speech synthesis technology it developed “to produce high-quality audiobooks from an ebook file.” 

According to The Guardian, Apple approached independent publishers who may be interested in teaming up for the project’s launch in recent months. Authors were reportedly told that the company behind the technology would shoulder the costs of turning their books into audiobooks and that they would be earning royalties. Apple, as secretive as ever, apparently remained unnamed at that point of the process and required partners to sign non-disclosure agreements. 

In its announcement, Apple touched on how commissioning voice actors and producing audiobooks could cost writers and publishers thousands of dollars. For independent authors, especially those just starting out, it’s not always possible to spare that much money. But thing is, the audiobook market has grown tremendously in recent years — it earned $1.6 billion in sales in 2021, and experts reportedly believe the market could be worth over $35 billion by 2030. Authors wouldn’t only be missing out on potential income by not creating audiobook versions of their titles, but also the opportunity to build their brand and following while the market is still growing. 

The tech giant said its digital narration technology will make audiobook creation more accessible. There is truth in that, and if the project turns out to be successful, it could change the future of audiobooks. Books narrated by a digital voice aren’t exactly new, though, and they’re typically hard to listen to due to how robotic they sound. David Caron, a co-producer at a large audiobook publisher in Canada, also raised an important point in his statement to The Guardian: “The narrator brings a whole new range of art in creating audiobook… They’re creating something that is different from the print book, but that adds value as an art form.”

At the moment, Apple offers authors two digital voices to choose from: One soprano and one baritone. They sound pretty human, based on the samples the company shared, but the sound clips were short and might not be a genuine representation of the whole audiobook’s quality. Apple is only accepting books in the romance and a limited number of other fiction genres for now. The books must already be available on Apple Books, must be in English and must pass and editorial review. It’s working to expand AI narration’s availability, however, and will soon offer it to nonfiction and self-development authors. The company will also launch two more digital voices for those genres. For now, you can listen to audiobooks that use Apple’s AI by searching for “AI narration” in Apple Books.

Watch Sony’s CES 2023 keynote in under 9 minutes

Sony has focused its CES efforts of late on electric cars, now in partnership with Honda, and this year was more of the same. Sony Honda Mobility unveiled its first prototype called Afeela, replacing the previous Vision-S 02. Its laden with sensors (radar, ultrasonic, cameras and more), uses Qualcomm’s new automotive chip and promises “interactive communication between mobility and people” via the so-called Media Bar. Pre-orders will start in mid-2025 with deliveries scheduled for spring of 2026.

Sony also provided a first look at its Neill Blomkamp-directed Gran Turismo movie, revealed that the Gran Turismo 7 game would be getting PlayStation VR 2 support and announced that Beat Saber was also coming to PSVR 2. The PlayStation 5 console has now passed 30 million units sold, and from now on, anyone who wants a PS5 should be able to get one.

Finally, the company revealed Project Leonardo aimed at building controllers that are easier to use for people with limited motor control. Taking a page from Microsoft’s gaming accessibility efforts, it uses a set of customizable circular gamepads. There’s no release date window or price yet. 

Watch Samsung’s keynote at CES 2023 in 6 minutes

Samsung introduced new QD-OLED TVs and a 57-inch 8K gaming display, the 2023 Freestyle projector and new Bespoke smart appliances at this year’s CES. During the company’s keynote, it also talked about its products’ new features and upgrades in detail, including a new wash cycle for washing machines that can reduce microplastic pollution. 

Presenters talked about SmartThings Workspace, which lets you connect to linked devices remotely, and SmartThings Pet Care, as well. Samsung’s pet service can send you alerts when your dogs bark and put on a show or video on a connected display to keep them entertained. Plus, it enables the camera on the brand’s robot vacuum to recognize dogs and cats. 

In addition, Samsung introduced the latest SmartThings hub, which is its smallest yet. The SmartThings Station, as it’s called, has a button that you can use to program smart lights, air conditioner or other home devices like smart blinds. It’s the first Samsung product to come with built-in Matter support, giving it the capability to connect with Matter-enabled devices from other manufacturers.

Any content played on the latest Samsung smart TVs can now sync with Philips Hue Lights for immersive lighting effects. The company also talked about the Knox Matrix, its security solution that acts as your private blockchain system for its smart home devices. Finally, Samsung presented the in-cabin car technology it developed in partnership with Harmon, as well as a new display technology called Relumino mode that can help people with low vision to see images more clearly. 

You can watch a condensed version of the event to get the gist of Samsung’s announcements in the video above.

Ember’s upcoming Travel Mug 2+ can be tracked in Apple’s Find My app

Apple’s Find My app alerts iOS and Mac users when they’ve left an item behind or helps them locate something they’ve lost. Later this year, you’ll be able to do just that with Ember’s heated travel mug. A new version, dubbed the Travel Mug 2+, is on th…

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 mobile CPUs feature up to 16 cores and 5.4GHz speeds

AMD is bringing out some big guns to take on Intel’s powerful HX laptop CPUs, and once again, they’re also called “HX.” The company’s new Ryzen 9 7945HX processor is its most premium mobile offering, with 16 cores and 32 threads, as well as speeds between 2.5GHz and 5.4GHz. It’s joined by an array of other Ryzen 7000 CPUs unveiled at CES (AMD also announced low-end chipsin September), which will power everything from budget laptops to extreme gaming and creator machines. The big takeaway this year? There will be a Ryzen laptop chip for practically every need.

It makes sense for AMD to focus even more on its HX chips this year. Intel unveiled its high-powered lineup last year, and this week it revealed that there will be even more HX processors in 2023, led by the 24-core i9-13980HX. Like its previous chips, Intel is using a hybrid design which combines Performance and Efficient cores. So while Intel’s core count is higher, its chips may end up performing similarly to AMD’s, which utilize full-speed cores across the board.

AMD Ryzen 7000 chips
AMD

The Ryzen HX CPUs will run at 55-watts and above (also like Intel’s), meaning they’ll focus more on raw power than battery life. AMD claims the 7945HX is 78 percent faster than the previous top-end Ryzen 6900HX in Cinebench’s multithreaded benchmark, and 18 percent faster in the single threaded test. Compared to Intel’s 12900HX, its high-end chip from last year, the 7945HX is 169 percent faster in Handbrake encoding and 75 percent faster with Blender rendering. You can expect to see the 7945HX in some of the premiere gaming laptops this year, like the Alienware m16 and m18, as well as the latest ASUS ROG Strix.

For a better balance between size and power, there’s also the new Ryzen 7040 HS series chips, running between 35W and 45W. AMD says these chips are aimed at thin enthusiasts, and you can expect to see them in laptops this March. The Ryzen 9 7940HS is the pinnacle of this lineup, featuring 8 cores, 16 threads and up to 5.2 GHz boost speeds.

The 7040 chips will also feature Ryzen AI, an integrated AI engine that can handle tasks like making background blurs during video calls, or sorting through your photo library. AMD says Ryzen AI can multitask up to 4 different AI workloads (or combine those capabilities on one task), and it’s reportedly 50 percent more power efficient than Apple’s M2. Intel is also planning to introduce a VPU AI accelerator in some of its 13th-gen chips — previously, we’ve only seen these accelerators on ARM chips, like the Microsoft SQ3 on the Surface Pro 9.

When it comes to true ultraportables, AMD has the U-series Ryzen 7030 and 7035 lineups, which range from 15W to 35W chips. Those include the Ryzen 3 7330U at the low end, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads, to the 8 core/16 thread Ryzen 7 7730U. (Curiously, Ryzen 3 7335U is just a quad-core chip, but it can use almost twice as much power as the 7330U.)

AMD brings RDNA 3 to laptops with Radeon 7000 GPUs

After taking a big swing at high-end desktop gaming with its RDNA 3 GPUs, AMD is bringing that technology down to laptops. At CES today, the company unveiled an array of Radeon RX 7000 mobile graphics cards. There’s the Radeon RX 7600M XT and 7600M, both targeted at high fps 1080p gaming, as well as the RX 7700S and RX 7600S, which are meant for thin and light notebooks. But that’s not all! There are also a few more mobile GPUs using AMD’s last-gen RDNA 2 technology, which will likely end up in more affordable laptops.

Let’s start with the RX 7600M XT, though, as it represents the pinnacle of AMD’s laptop gaming ambitions. It features 32 compute units, 8GB of GDDR6 memory, and it can use up to 120 watts worth of power. According to AMD, it soundly beats the desktop RTX 3060 GPU, which is notable since that card is faster than NVDIA’s laptop models. The 7600M XT can reach up to 184 fps in Hitman 3 with maxed out graphics settings, whereas the 12GB RTX 3060 hits 160fps. It’s not faster in every title, though, as AMD notes that the new GPU is 9fps slower than the 3060 in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (145fps vs 154 fps).

AMD Radeon 7000 GPU
AMD

It’ll be more interesting to see how the RX 7700S and 7600S actually perform in thin and light machines. The 7700S features the same 32 compute units and 8GB of RAM as the 7600M XT, but it maxes out at 100W of power. AMD says the 7700S can reach up to 87fps in Cyberpunk 2077 and 147fps in Death Stranding with maxed out 1080p graphics.

Based on my review of AMD’s RDNA 3 GPUs, it’s clear the company has some powerful architecture. But those cards also lagged far behind NVIDIA’s when it came to ray tracing performance, especially once I enabled DLSS 3 upscaling. AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 3.0 upscaling just couldn’t compete. The company says it’s developed a new feature, dubbed Smart Shift RSR, which offers upscaling “decoupled from the GPU.” Details are a bit fuzzy, but it supposedly adds more performance. AMD says it’ll arrive sometime in the first half of 2023.

You can expect to see AMD’s Radeon RX 7000 GPUs in laptops next month. It’ll be featured in AMD Advantage editions of Alienware’s M16 and M18, as well as ASUS’s TUF Gaming A16. Almost as an afterthought, AMD also briefly noted the launched of several new Radeon 6000 GPUs, including the Radeon RX 6550M, featuring 16 compute units and 4GB of RAM. A wider variety of GPUs is ultimately a good thing for consumers, since it means you’re more likely to find a gaming laptop within your budget.