#i only get updated via stray clips | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wtfockinternational · 5 years ago

Text

An article about wtFOCK translated from Dutch:

How wtFOCK conquers taboos through trial and error

wtFOCK: for one person a key player, for the other a rather strange combination of consonants. Young people can’t seem to stay away from the successful web series. The new season has started, so we can look back at the previous one. For three months many fans were glued to their screens for a sixteen-year-old’s coming-out. Did this pave a way for more and honest representation of LGBTQ+-problems, or did they occasionally stray from that path?

“‘Secret’ series wtFOCK became the most popular search term on Google in 2019”, various media reported in December. This news seemed to come as a surprise, because many people seemed to have never heard of the term, let alone the web series. And still the series could crown itself the proverbial king of last year’s Google. How did that happen?

The online series that arrived here from Norway mostly seems a hit with teenagers and young adults. In nine weeks’ time the third season got about 11.8 million online views, SBS Belgium said. In total around 400,000 young people between 15 and 34 would be watching the series.

The presumed reason for the success? Young people can follow the characters daily via their smartphones through short, real-time updates and real Instagram-accounts. So ideal in a world where watching linear television, especially for the younger generation, becomes more out of the question. Besides that the series is kept out of the media consciously, to preserve its authenticity and let young people discover it on their own. So far, so good, it seems.

Homosexual main character

Concretely wtFOCK follows the lives of young people in secondary school, where all kinds of teenage troubles don’t get avoided. Since the previous season more social problems are being discussed, too. The series tackled a topic that still hasn’t completely removed itself from the taboo atmosphere: homosexuality, a coming-out, and everything that comes with it. From absolute peaks to the sometimes painful lows we are witnesses to the bumpy road towards self-acceptance that sixteen-year-old Robbe experiences.

But is that a new thing, an LGBT-character in Flemish fiction? Florian Vanlee researches the LGBTQ+-representation in Flemish television series at Ghent University. He clarifies: “About 20 percent of productions is said to have a prominent LGBT-character. Regarding supporting characters, it’s about 33 percent. That’s a relatively large part.”

It does seem the first time that in a commercial youth television the full attention of the main character goes towards homosexuality. “It’s remarkable how instantaneously the focus explicitly goes towards homosexuality. wtFOCK is therefore a very valuable program”, Vanlee says. The question therefore arises how the new form of representation was received by the LGBTQ+-community.

About recognition and self-acceptance

Amver Maselis, a 20-year-old bisexual student from Hove, has been a fan of the original SKAM. When the series ended in Norway, she started to follow the other remakes. Therefore her interest also brought her to wtFOCK. Passionately she talks about a series which she clearly values a lot. “I’ve been following the project for several years, and despite the subtle differences between shows, the main topics are always portrayed nicely.”

Out of all the remakes she thinks wtFOCK is the best one. Then again, the Flemish version connects the most with her own environment. “Now that the series has arrived in Antwerp, in my own culture, it suddenly feels very close to home.”

It helps that she really recognizes herself in Robbe, the main character that comes out of the closet to his friends and family in his teenage years. “It touches me, because I notice that I’ve sometimes said or felt the same things. Back then it was a huge secret I kept to myself. Now I know that it’ll all be fine,” says Amber. ‘ For other young people the series could be encouraging, like SKAM was for me three years ago, when I had just come out of the closet and I has to learn to accept myself.”

22-year-old Fabio Olivieri from Antwerp seems to share that opinion. As a teenager he barely saw a gay character to which he could relate. It comforts him to know that that’s different for the youth today. Besides that he commends the portrayal of the fact that members of the LGBT-community often have to learn to accept themselves, too. “sometimes it’s hard to learn how to deal with it, to know how you feel and if you want to feel that way. That’s portrayed beautifully.”

“Do you have questions?”

So the storyline can be a comfort to youth who can relate to it. wtFOCK also consciously wants to focus on that aspect. Not only by pushing the subject forward, but also by working together with the online platform WAT WAT. This initiative of the Flemish Government is a bundling of forces of more than 70 organizations to inform the youth. Together, those organizations want to make sure that “all young people are confident and can develop their identity in a positive manner.” On the website, youth can find answers about exam stress, problems at home, but also about sex, sexuality, … you name it.

After every clip of wtFOCK the possibility to visit watwat.be is shown, “in case you have questions”. That initiative pleases Ferre Lamber, a 25-year-old man from Antwerp who remembers how he also went to the internet for questions about his homosexuality when he was younger. “Sometimes it’s just hard to tell someone directly that you’re doubting your sexual orientation. So I can definitely imagine that young people will look online for answers.”

This way, wtFOCK wants to do more than just entertain. “Even though it’s fiction, which automatically entails the aspect of entertainment, that is not the essence of our show”, screenwriter Bram Renders says, incidentally also the writer of youth series W817. “We mostly want to show the youth that they’re not alone. That element is strongly present, and it’s nice that we can convey that message like this.”

The harsh reality

Thus, the series carries an important reality, which can be harsh sometimes. Fabio isn’t sure if he can always appreciate that. “I thought that the homophobia in wtFOCK was pretty cruel sometimes. Somehow that’s a good thing, because real life is like that, too. I’ve already experienced that myself. But in series the focus is generally on all the problems gay characters come into contact with. It would have been nice to see that this wasn’t the case. It has two sides.”

One specific scene that, for the same reason, caused a bomb of critical reactions on Twitter to explode, was when gay bashing was shown shortly, but very explicitly. The choice to portray it, is understandable based on the fact that it’s still a real and current problem today. At the end of December, two LGBT-boys in Ghent became victims of gay bashing. In Het Nieuwsblad they called for other victims to not stay silent, but to report such senseless violence to the police. However, in wtFOCK it’s shown how the main character and his boyfriend decide not to go to the police.

Ferre can understand that decision. “As a victim you want to avoid even more trouble and je need the strength to do something about it. I understand that not everyone would have that. One single right way to deal with gay bashing doesn’t exist.”

Ferre is concerned by, is the way in which the show depicted the incident as a while. The scene depicts how Robbe and his boyfriend get verbally abused and attacked. It end abruptly with the two left injured. Only the next day do we as viewer get to know if everything is okay. “Two years ago, when I hadn’t been with my boyfriend for that long, we were followed, too. After, we cuddled, drank tea, and watched a series, … at moment like that you just want to be together lovingly. You want to know if everything will be okay. But in wtFOCK nothing happened on the night itself and the matter was resolved quickly afterwards.”

Criticism

So more clarity would have been appropriate. The possibilities that you have as a victim after such an incident weren’t emphasized enough according to Ferre. Especially not for a show that has the support of a platform like WAT WAT.

This is clearly not the first time that Bram Renders hears this criticism. He has already given up on reading reactions on Twitter, he jokes. Hesitantly he does admit that they could’ve handled the scene better.

‘How it was protrayed, is more intense than how I imagined it during my rose-colored writing process.’ He says. ‘ That’s no criticism towards the director, because you can never know something like that beforehand. But in hindsight it would have been appropriate to show a follow-up-clip, in which they come home for example. As writeryou always have moments of which you think that it would have been better if you handled them differently; this is one of them.’

Besides that it was a conscious decision to make wtFOCK more heavy than the original SKAM. That decision came after prior conversations with people from the LGBTQ+-community. ‘According to the most people I talked to, was the internal struggle of the main character in the original version too small en was the world around him to rose-colored. So we made that world more raw.’ said Renders.

Ignorance

Then again, benefit of such heavy scenes is the awareness it brings about in viewers outside the LGBTQ+-community. “If you don’t know anyone who’s gay, then you also don’t know how we feel and how we experience certain things,” Fabio emphasizes. “I think that because of wtFOCK people can become more aware. Especially with the amount of young people that watch the series, it can provide more understanding and tolerance.”

Ferre also thinks that larger audiences are show what LGBT-people have to deal with. “Nowadays we don’t know enough about each other’s lives. I noticed that when colleagues or friends asked surprised if certain scenes are really like that, and if I’m really scared to hold hands with my boyfriend in the streets. The different seasons of wtFOCK provide good insights into different problems and how people handle them”, he decides.

Of course, purely scientifically it’s hard to determine such an impact on the audience. But intuitively speaking, that impact is already very logical, researcher Florian Vanlee (UGent) clarifies. “On one side, it can be important for people who do not meet the social standard to see their own experiences portrayed. On the other side, it can make those experiences for those who have less knowledge about it more obvious.”

New insights get subtly imparted throughout the series, but sometimes also in a more explicit manner, like in the part about the Gay Pride. At one point Robbe sneering tells his homosexual roommate that he isn’t the kind of person to dance around at Prides with “plumes in his hole”. That roommate is a more extravagant character that is mostly portrayed as support, with wise advice. He offers Robbe (but mostly the viewer) rebuttal with a short, but emotional history lesson. “Do you know that those people had to fight to be who they are?”, it sounds.

The show is undoubtedly referring to the protests of Stonewall which later grew into the Gay Prides all over the world. Something that is often forgotten, gets emphasized here: that people in the LGBTQ+-community had to travel a long and difficult path to have equal rights today and to be able to completely be themselves.

Amber thinks it’s very important for that history to be highlighted. “That people would rather die than not be able to be who they are, is the basic principle of the Gay Pride. There’s more behind it than semi-naked, dancing people, as some still see it.”

Better representation

Referring to the Gay Pride, Ferre admits to be somewhat disappointed about the type of main character in this season of wtFOCK. According to him it also could’ve been a more pronounced type for once. According to him, LGBTQ+-representation is focused on the so-called ‘mainstream’ LGBT-people too often.

At the start of September the topic got a lot of attention, when radio-dj Wanne Synnave (MNM) made the following statement in the talkshow Vandaag: “The biggest problem is that all the role models you see conform to the cliché image. I’ve never been able to identify myself in that area. I think that there’s a need for more mainstream LGBT-role models, the normal man and woman in the street. So not those flamboyant role models, which are pretty cliché.”

That statement caused a lot of outrage in the LGBTQ+-community. Many people didn’t agree, and had the opinion that there were already plenty of LGBT-people portrayed according to ‘hetero standards’. Florian Vanlee (UGent) confirms that in Flanders very little stereotypical characters are portrayed. “You could almost go so far as to say that the majority of the LGBT-characters are a sort of reverse-stereotype. For example, you will very rarely find very flamboyant gay characters.”

So television program makers represent (admittedly with good intentions) in a very general manner. “But exactly because of that, a large part of the LGBT-community are kept out of the picture”, Vanlee says. So there is need for more varying representation.

Balance

In the specific case of wtFOCK we can argue that the show follows the original format from Norway, and takes satisfaction in the extravagant gay character Milan, the roommate. “It’s hard to find a good balance”, screenwriter Bram Renders says. “In this case I thought that that balance with the ‘out in the open, take it or leave it’-roommate was enough.

In addition, according to Florian Vanlee, it’s not fair to judge individual series on those choices. “That’s not the right way to deal with what we want to see in media and popular culture”, Vanlee thinks. “Nowadays, in Flanders, it’s normal to represent LGBT-characters, for example Kaat in the soap Thuis. That was already an important step. What could be better, isn’t the responsibility of the television-industry, but also the discourse it generates,” he decides.

Finally, representation in Flemish media doesn’t just concern LGBTQ+-characters. It’s also important to look at the portrayal of people with a migration background or with different religions, for example. But wtFOCK doesn’t shy away from that either. In the fourth season, the show takes a new taboo by the horns by making Yasmina, a Muslim character, the main. It remains to be seen how the young, but critical audience will find the new theme.

#wtfock #wtfam #skam

298 notes · View notes

bxd-gucci-gand-leader · 5 years ago

Text

How do you take photos that have large white borders at the top and bottom?

Set a Bookmark the permalink. If the video camera app is closed via the Home button and later called up again, the Video setting is retained. The situation is different when it is thrown out of the multitasking screen; when restarting, video must be selected again in the scroll line. I'm very satisfied with the high-tech video camera of the iPhone 6. Incidentally, it also creates great photos. Many iOS users will want to know how to place text, a phrase, or a word overlay on a video recorded on their iPhone. This is a fairly common and basic video editing task that can be handled with the iMovie app on iPhone.

More than twice as many new cars with electricity - but the thing ...

We are already working on it and will be back for you as soon as possible. Please come back later. We apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. Thousands of deaf people in German-speaking Switzerland can use the new "DeafVoice" emergency app to independently establish a direct connection to the local police, fire service and other emergency services around the clock. Incidentally, VSCO has had features similar to SKRWT for "straightening" buildings since the last update. However, if you've never added text to a video before and if you don't have as much video editing background (like me), the whole editing process get more info with iMovie can be a bit confusing at first. But don't worry, we'll go through every step and show you how to put text on a video using iMovie for iOS. You can choose various video quality options to save. 360p, 540p, 720p and 1080p, note that the higher quality options that look much better also result in much larger file sizes and thus the storage time is also a bit longer. Compatibility Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. This app is only available in the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

iMovie is one of the best software to add watermarks if you are using Mac or iOS, but for Windows experts advise other software that we discussed below.

We use cookies and analysis tools to improve the user-friendliness of the website and to display suitable advertising from watson and our advertising partners.

As if you were photographing a high-rise building, for example, the straight lines of the building are slightly bent on the digital photo be.

Click the "Delete Keyframe" button to delete the current keyframe.

Are there any good editing apps for photos?

iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus will appear soon and offer the following innovations.

The free Motion Stills app is an "insider tip" for owners of an iPhone 6S or 6S Plus (and all future Apple mobile devices that will produce so-called "Live Photos", a kind of moving pictures). With the «Lens Distortions» app, you can pimp smartphone photos so that they look like professional photos. It conjures up lighting effects and smoke at the place of choice and also gives a breeze to boring pictures. With the SKRWT app, photographic perspective distortions caused by the small lenses in smartphone cameras can be corrected. As if you were photographing a high-rise building, for example, the straight lines of the building on the digital photo will be slightly curved at first. Click the Apply button in the Picture-in-Picture controls to apply the change. In the timeline, select the picture-in-picture clip you want to animate. In the timeline, select the clip with the picture-in-picture effect. Click the pop-up menu on the left and choose Picture in Picture. Release the mouse button when a green plus (+) symbol appears.

While this shows that text is being transferred to video using iMovie on an iPhone, the process is likely the same on iMovie for iPad or other iOS devices as well. For Mac users, the process is a little bit different, but it's covered here if you're interested. Of course, iMovie has a lot more options on the iPad - this will be demonstrated in more detail soon. What I need next is a simple lens hood (to avoid stray light) that could be attached to the leather case (Lens Hood, Wikipedia). It will be more or less just a small plastic ring. SKRWT straightens at the push of a button, making the recordings look much more professional. Below are a few key points to keep in mind when adding watermarks to your videos or photographs. You can position a picture-in-picture clip anywhere in the timeline. You can resize it and add a frame and an effect like “Blend”, “Zoom” or “Swap”.

#how do you overlay a picture in imovie on iphone?

1 note · View note

sending-the-message · 7 years ago

Text

The sky is a little brighter today thanks to the Black Knight Satellite. by shipinthesea123

After Mondays eclipse, the sky is a little brighter. You probably won't notice it because the source of this extra illumination isn't that large, but I fear this small source of light may will have a unprecedented impact on our planet.

The Black Knight Satellite has turned white....bright white and very bright.

The names Josh, and I work as a custodian at the Space Fence . A now relic of the Air Force Space Command, once served as a the forefront in detection of objects in our immediate space through a series of radio transmissions. Like many other government initiatives, there is a lot more to the story than that. I started work with the initiative in 2004, and continued through the decommission of the effort in 2013. Like most abandoned government projects, someone has to "inspect and protect" government assets. Basically, the technology was outdated and Lockheed, Northrop and Raytheon have all already won the bid for the new and improved space fence, to be built off of Kwajalein Atoll. So, until they completely decommission our operation, myself and a few other staff occupy the last remaining "hot" low-power sites monitoring and sending data down the rabbit hole. I spend my time here in Lake Kickapoo Texas at the Master Transmitter. The seclusion and little interaction with anyone is a nice change from my time in Dallas. The ex wife not having a knowledge of where I am doesn't hurt either.

Those of you who have some interest in the paranormal community may know of the Black Knight Satellite. Spurred by Nikola Tesla's supposed session listening to radio waves from the object. These signals were sent perfectly timed and were deemed by Tesla to be intelligent, or from an intelligent source.

Que the forest fire of speculations and outlandish stories, and the Black Knight quickly became nonsense. Do your curiosity a favor and research it. The BK has so many back stories, it can only be a hoax right?

Not quite.

In October 2013, official word came from our headquarters that Space Fence has been deemed outdated. Our new initiative was to move towards low power duty and automation with the exception of custodial personnel to confirm that the grounds were maintained and automation was left uninterrupted. I liked Lake Kickapoo. This station is based in the middle of a farm, and the little shack on the lake I had bought was perfect. So I asked for the custodial position and received it. Having the ability to sit and monitor radio transmissions from space from 9am to 2pm, then fix a gutter or mow the grass was heaven to me.

To the Black Knight. If you read into the lore of it, radio transmissions seem to be the running theme.

Here's what my briefing uncovered to me and the other staff taking part in the Space Fence;

1) It is a real thing. Our governments are aware of it and when we can spot it, efforts from all parts of the world to catch a glimpse of it or intercept the radio transmissions. The closest man-made satellite usually intercepts a visual or auditory signal. The longest recorded information on the BK was from the International Space Station in 2012. The ISS made visual with the BK. The visuals of the BK confirmed its size to be comparable to a small sedan, with a texture that looked like that of a smooth onyx metal. There was a notable disruption in electronics in the ISS, signalling that the BK has an apparent electromagnetic field. Crew members noted confusion after witnessing the event. The BK disappeared.

2) It has a random, unpredictable pattern. Previously thought to have a polar orbit, no one has been able to predict or discover a pattern to it. It just....disappears.

3) It hasn't been sending a radio signal to us like Tesla originally thought. It has been sending a signal about us. Most are thought to have no knowledge of what the transmissions meant, but after decoding recorded transmissions, many people from around the world have interpreted it to be a basic "Handbook of Humanity". Form our genome codes, to our political structure and religious constructs.

4) Here is the most unsettling fact about the Black Knight. We know nothing else about it. It has appeared harmless, the BK itself. Just a spy station for something/someone. All signs point to extraterrestrial, but really the question to who or why can't be determined. So we've waited. It's been our Elephant in the Room for a while. Everyone in the upper echelons of government know about it. They know it's gathering information and transmitting it back out but why? It has boiled down to the fact that they can't catch it, therefore they can't figure out where it came from and so on.....so why worry about it?

A bit fucked up if you ask me.

But, we who are privy to it's existence carry on our daily duties, knowing that it's there and we do nothing. We just know that this out there. This so called "benign big brother" watching us.

Monday started out like all the others. I wanted to take a little time to catch the eclipse like many other Americans so I started my day early. My director would occasionally drop by to check and see if the compound was good at random drop ins, so I stayed on my toes. I mowed around the length of the radio transmitters, blew the clippings off the parking lot and knocked the few stray shrub limbs off. I keep the place in tip-top shape as if it were active to this day. I laid in the bed of my pickup with my glasses and stared off into the eclipse and life went on like it any other.

I stepped foot back onto my front porch at around 6:03pm, my nightly round of Netflix and shitty TV dinners was on track when my cell phone rang. It displayed a "Unknown Caller" for the ID. Answering it, I expected a recorded message alerting me of my vehicles warranty expiring or the situation with my current credit card debts, but no such luck. It was a disturbing call that I have only heard about people like me receiving in dire consequences. When we communication stations need to be listening....and listening close.

A recorded female voice, hurried but exact in her instructions.

"All Space Fence stations; Protocol H184.... 216.98 MHz Alpha Foxtrot Blue" She repeated this two additional times before the call ended with the beep beep beep signalling it hanging up.

I froze. I was instructed about this in '13 when we brought the fence down. Protocol H183 is a full power up. 216.98 MHz is the fences full operating frequency. AFB.....that's what worried me, it's a signal of a huge issue. Some kind of national disaster or a threat.

Surely this wasn't a test. We're a tick dick away from having all of the power cut to this program, why in the hell would they bring us back up?

My phone rang. Reggie from our fill-in transmitter site in Jordan Lake, AL calling. He had received the same call...Dianne from Gila River, AZ called next. We were all given the orders for a full power up. I sped off to my site.

While heading there, I received an email. Which was almost as shocking since the power down, I rarely received correspondence via email unless it was to receive my W-9 at the end of the year. It lit up with more emails from our group on the project.....the receiving stations were being brought up as well.

Hawkinsville, GA Elephant Butte, NM Sand Diego, CA Tattnal, GA Silver Lake, MS Red River, AR

All were ordered to be at full power by 2359 Eastern Time.

I felt instant nostalgia the minute I went to the main breaker and pumped the primer to flip the breaker. When it snapped into place, I could almost feel the energy running back into the sleeper station. The two red blinking caution lights at either end of the antennas quickly lit up like a runway when the forty or so other lights powered up. My little spot in the Texas desert was back online. Well, almost. This station was usually manned by at least 5 people. Startup wasn't impossible with one man, but timely. Finally at 2100 central time, I went online at 100%. I pulled the plastic film off of the chair in the middle of the control room and fell into the seat. For a moment, the terror of whatever was going on was masked for a moment by the pride of accomplishment. I pulled out my phone and started working my way through the forty some odd emails unread. It was a barrage of "What's going on?" or "Tattnal online" or "Hey, didn't the guy running San Diego die?". Our director, the "boss" never piped in the email exchange until he sent a simple, "Update to come at 0200 EST."

The worst fears came to mind while I checked and rechecked.

Nuclear war? Bio-terrorism? Why the hell is the AFSSS involved? Space Ebola or something?

I couldn't understand why in the hell they wanted the Space Fence online for a disaster? It would almost be like fighting cyber terrorism with a calculator. We're outdated. All we could do it detect things in the atmosphere.

0200 EST came.

An encrypted message hit my inbox. After pulling it and getting it to it's full form, I read the contents.

Air Force Space Surveillance

All Auditory/Radio/Visual Personell

RE: Black Knight

On August 21st, 2017 NASA has reported a sighting of the Black Knight Satellite. One like no other on record. >Approximately 1630 EST, ISS reported the BK had appeared mere feet away from the observation pod. Scientists on >board reported that the surface of BK, usually giving off a solid appearance, now looked fluid. During the 14 minute 34 >second time-frame it was in view, it slowly illuminated. Both cameras, and occupants of the ISS could not view with the >naked eye, or a camera anything decipherable after said illumination event.

A spike in transmissions of all kinds are being reported. Space Fence has been ordered activated to pick up any >anomalies or atmosphere entry.

Keep our ears open at the listening stations and send to HQ for decoding. The boys up top want to know what BK is >saying.

It is moving in a course that is in orbit, but inline with the suns current pattern.

Update through encryption any anomalies noted by your station.

End.

Sleep deprivation is a helluva drug. I can't help but think of the possible scenarios. Why haven't we as a people made a bigger deal of this. Did we just accept the fact that we were being watched and broken down? That this CCTV has been floating right above us and we've just....done nothing.

What is it doing? Why has it lit up?

I received another encrypted email. San Diego is picking up an entry. New Mexico and Arkansas are confirming.

An old friend who deciphers in the AFSSS has called. He says BK is talking...

EVACUATE. INVASION IMMINENT.

Is the BK talking to us though?

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

1 note · View note

aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Keanu Reeves Needs You to Accept That Bill and Ted Aren’t Stoners

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Just as long-awaited comedy threequel Bill & Ted Face the Music is about to be unleashed onto the world, Keanu Reeves has something to say about its iconic central characters, Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted Theodore Logan: they are categorically not stoners.

Sure, some people might have enjoyed watching Reeves and longtime pal Alex Winter in the Bill and Ted movies over the decades while high as all fuck and may have also projected that onto the beloved pair of time-traveling dudes, but that doesn’t mean the characters were ever anything other than lovable goofballs who just wanted you to be excellent to each other.

Bill and Ted have never explicitly been shown smoking weed or pictured with any assorted paraphernalia in the franchise, but the first two films are often cited as stoner movies, and as recently as April, Rolling Stone put 1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in its 10 Best Stoner Movies of All Time. With the release of Bill & Ted Face the Music on the horizon, though, Reeves has had enough of people assuming the duo are baked.

“I’d like to get one thing straight. Bill and Ted are not stoners,” Reeves confirmed in the midst of a new interview with AP. “You know, they have a nice outlook. They like people – their friendship.”

After witnessing Reeves lay down the law, we strayed to the comments (usually a very bad idea) to see how people were taking the news, and it was a mixed bag honestly.

“As a long time fan of Bill and Ted I never once got the impression that they were stoners. It was never implied or suggested. It never crossed my mind. Complete idiots, yes, but not stoners,” one piped up, while another challenged Reeves’ assertions with “This only confirms that Bill and Ted are HUGE stoners.” However, a gentleman with the handle Mike’s Cannabis Reviews, who recently posted a ‘sesh update’ after trying out a recipe for pot-infused meatballs, took it less well:

“Bill & Ted not stoners wulp u lost a fan and I use to love these movies smh thanks for ruining my childhood smfh,” he posted solemnly.

Meanwhile, we only had one lingering question about the above clip of Reeves and Winter, echoed in the comments by someone called ‘cybernex’: “what is a reason to put videos on YouTube in 360p in 2020?”

Co-starring Brigette Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving, Bill & Ted Face the Music follows the best friends encountering various versions of themselves after they find out that one of their tunes could save the world. The film will be released in (some) theaters and via VOD on August 28, and pretty much everyone is looking forward to it.

The post Keanu Reeves Needs You to Accept That Bill and Ted Aren’t Stoners appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/32qtjlz

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

judeblenews-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Say ‘Aloha’: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions

Facebook has been a bit slow to adopt the voice computing revolution. It has no voice assistant, its smart speaker is still in development, and some apps like Instagram aren’t fully equipped for audio communication. But much of that is set to change judging by experiments discovered in Facebook’s code, plus new patent filings. Developing voice functionality could give people more ways to use Facebook in their home or on the go. Its forthcoming Portal smart speaker is reportedly designed for easy video chatting with distant family, including seniors and kids that might have trouble with phones. Improved transcription and speech-to-text-to-speech features could connect Messenger users across input mediums and keep them on the chat app rather than straying back to SMS.

But Facebook’s voice could be drowned out by the din of the crowd if it doesn’t get moving soon. All the major mobile hardware and operating system makers now have their own voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby, as well as their own smart speakers. In Q2 2018, Canalys estimates that Google shipped 5.4 million Homes, and Amazon shipped 4.1 million Echoes. Apple’s HomePod is off to a slow start with less than 6 percent of the market, behind Alibaba’s smart speaker, according to Strategy Analytics. Facebook’s spotty record around privacy might deflect potential customers to its competitors. Given Facebook is late to the game, it will need to arrive with powerful utility that solves real problems. Here’s a look at Facebook’s newest developments in the voice space, and how its past experiments lay the groundwork for its next big push.

Aloha voice

Facebook is developing its own speech recognition feature under the name Aloha for both the Facebook and Messenger apps, as well as external hardware — likely the video chat smart speaker it’s developing. Code inside the Facebook and Messenger Android apps dug up by frequent TechCrunch tipster and mobile researcher Jane Manchun Wong gives the first look at a prototype for the Aloha user interface. Labeled “Aloha Voice Testing,” as a user speaks while in a message thread, a horizontal blue bar expands and contracts to visualize the volume of speech while recognizing and transcribing into text. The code describes the feature as having connections with external Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices. It’s possible that the software will run on both Facebook’s hardware and software, similar to Google Assistant that runs both on phones and Google Home speakers. Facebook declined to comment on the video, with its spokesperson Ha Thai telling me, “We test stuff all the time — nothing to share today but my team will be in touch in a few weeks about hardware news coming from the AR/VR org.” It unclear if that hardware news will focus on voice and Aloha or Portal, or if it’s merely related to Facebook’s Oculus Connect 5 conference on September 25th.

A source previously told me that years ago, Facebook was interested in developing its own speech recognition software designed specifically to accurately transcribe how friends talk to each other. These speech patterns are often more casual, colloquial, rapid and full of slang than the way we formally address computerized assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home.

Wong also found the Aloha logo buried in Facebook’s code, which features volcano imagery. I can confirm that I’ve seen a Facebook Aloha Setup chatbot with a similar logo on the phones of Facebook employees. If Facebook can figure this out, it could offer its own transcription features in Messenger and elsewhere on the site so users could communicate across mediums. It could potentially let you dictate comments or messages to friends while you have your hands full or can’t look at your screen. The recipient could then read the text instead of having to listen to it like a voice message. The feature also could be used to power voice navigation of Facebook’s apps for better hands-free usage.

Speaker and camera patents

Facebook awarded patent for speaker Facebook’s video chat smart speaker was reportedly codenamed Aloha originally but later renamed Portal, Alex Heath of Business Insider and now Cheddar first reported in August 2017. The $499 competitor to the Amazon Echo Show was initially set to launch at Facebook’s F8 in May, but Bloomberg reported it was pushed back amid concerns that it would exacerbate the privacy scandal ignited by Cambridge Analytica. A new patent filing reveals Facebook was considering building a smart speaker as early as December 26th, 2016 when it filed a patent for a cube-shaped device. The patent diagrams an “ornamental design for a speaker device” invented by Baback Elmieh, Alexandre Jais and John Proksch-Whaley. Facebook had acquired Elmieh’s startup Nascent Objects in September of that year and he’s now a technical project lead at Facebook’s secretive Building 8 hardware lab.

The startup had been building modular hardware, and earlier this year he was awarded patents for work at Facebook on several modular cameras. The speaker and camera technology Facebook has been developing could potentially evolve into what’s in its video chat speaker. The fact that Facebook has been exploring speaker technology for so long and that the lead on these patents is still running a secret project in Building 8 strengthens the case that Facebook has big plans for the voice space.

Patents awarded to Facebook show designs for a camera (left) and video camera (right)

Instagram voice messaging

And finally, Instagram is getting deeper into the voice game, too. A screenshot generated from the code of Instagram’s Android app by Wong reveals the development of a voice clip messaging feature heading to Instagram Direct. This would allow you to speak into Instagram and send the audio clips similar to a walkie-talkie, or the voice messaging feature Facebook Messenger added back in 2013. You can see the voice button in the message composer at the bottom of the screen, and the code explains that to “Voice message, press and hold to record.” The prototype follows the recent launch of video chat in Instagram Direct, another feature on which TechCrunch broke the news thanks to Wong’s research. An Instagram spokesperson declined to comment, as is typical when features are spotted in its code but aren’t publicly testing yet, saying, “Unfortunately nothing more to share on this right now.”

The long road to Voicebook

Facebook has long tinkered in the voice space. In 2015, it acquired natural language processing startup Wit.ai that ran a developer platform for building speech interfaces, though it later rolled Wit.ai into Messenger’s platform team to focus on chatbots. Facebook also began testing automatically transcribing Messenger voice clips into text in 2015 in what was likely the groundwork for the Aloha feature seen above. The company also revealed its M personal assistant that could accomplish tasks for users, but it was only rolled out to a very limited user base and later turned off. The next year, Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus claimed at TechCrunch Disrupt that voice “is not something we’re actively working on right now,” but added that “at some point it’s pretty obvious that as we develop more and more capabilities and interactions inside of Messenger, we’ll start working on voice exchanges and interfaces.” However, a source had told me Facebook’s secretive Language Technology Group was already exploring voice opportunities. Facebook also began testing its Live Audio feature for users who want to just broadcast sound and not video. By 2017, Facebook was offering automatic captioning for Pages’ videos, and was developing a voice search feature. And this year, Facebook began trying voice clips as status updates and Stories for users around the world who might have trouble typing in their native tongue. But executives haven’t spoken much about the voice initiatives.

The most detailed comments we have come from Facebook’s head of design Luke Woods at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 where he described voice search saying it was, “very promising. There are lots of exciting things happening…. I love to be able to talk to the car to navigate to a particular place. That’s one of many potential use cases.” It’s also one that voice transcription could aid. It’s still unclear exactly what Facebook’s Aloha will become. It could be a de facto operating system or voice interface and transcription feature for Facebook’s smart speaker and apps. It could become a more full-fledged voice assistant like M, but with audio. Or perhaps it could become Facebook’s bridge to other voice ecosystems, serving as Facebook’s Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action. When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?,” he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.” Via: TechCrunch Read the full article

#Apps

0 notes

sheminecrafts · 6 years ago

Text

Say ‘Aloha’: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions

Developing voice functionality could give people more ways to use Facebook in their home or on the go. Its forthcoming Portal smart speaker is reportedly designed for easy video chatting with distant family, including seniors and kids that might have trouble with phones. Improved transcription and speech-to-text-to-speech features could connect Messenger users across input mediums and keep them on the chat app rather than straying back to SMS.

Given Facebook is late to the game, it will need to arrive with powerful utility that solves real problems. Here’s a look at Facebook’s newest developments in the voice space, and how its past experiments lay the groundwork for its next big push.

Aloha voice

youtube

Labeled “Aloha Voice Testing,” as a user speaks while in a message thread, a horizontal blue bar expands and contracts to visualize the volume of speech while recognizing and transcribing into text. The code describes the feature as having connections with external Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices. It’s possible that the software will run on both Facebook’s hardware and software, similar to Google Assistant that runs both on phones and Google Home speakers.

Facebook declined to comment on the video, with its spokesperson Ha Thai telling me, “We test stuff all the time — nothing to share today but my team will be in touch in a few weeks about hardware news coming from the AR/VR org.” It unclear if that hardware news will focus on voice and Aloha or Portal, or if it’s merely related to Facebook’s Oculus Connect 5 conference on September 25th.

If Facebook can figure this out, it could offer its own transcription features in Messenger and elsewhere on the site so users could communicate across mediums. It could potentially let you dictate comments or messages to friends while you have your hands full or can’t look at your screen. The recipient could then read the text instead of having to listen to it like a voice message. The feature also could be used to power voice navigation of Facebook’s apps for better hands-free usage.

Speaker and camera patents

Facebook awarded patent for speaker

Facebook’s video chat smart speaker was reportedly codenamed Aloha originally but later renamed Portal, Alex Heath of Business Insider and now Cheddar first reported in August 2017. The $499 competitor to the Amazon Echo Show was initially set to launch at Facebook’s F8 in May, but Bloomberg reported it was pushed back amid concerns that it would exacerbate the privacy scandal ignited by Cambridge Analytica.

A new patent filing reveals Facebook was considering building a smart speaker as early as December 26th, 2016 when it filed a patent for a cube-shaped device. The patent diagrams an “ornamental design for a speaker device” invented by Baback Elmieh, Alexandre Jais and John Proksch-Whaley. Facebook had acquired Elmieh’s startup Nascent Objects in September of that year and he’s now a technical project lead at Facebook’s secretive Building 8 hardware lab.

The fact that Facebook has been exploring speaker technology for so long and that the lead on these patents is still running a secret project in Building 8 strengthens the case that Facebook has big plans for the voice space.

Patents awarded to Facebook show designs for a camera (left) and video camera (right)

Instagram voice messaging

You can see the voice button in the message composer at the bottom of the screen, and the code explains that to “Voice message, press and hold to record.” The prototype follows the recent launch of video chat in Instagram Direct, another feature on which TechCrunch broke the news thanks to Wong’s research. An Instagram spokesperson declined to comment, as is typical when features are spotted in its code but aren’t publicly testing yet, saying, “Unfortunately nothing more to share on this right now.”

The long road to Voicebook

The next year, Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus claimed at TechCrunch Disrupt that voice “is not something we’re actively working on right now,” but added that “at some point it’s pretty obvious that as we develop more and more capabilities and interactions inside of Messenger, we’ll start working on voice exchanges and interfaces.” However, a source had told me Facebook’s secretive Language Technology Group was already exploring voice opportunities. Facebook also began testing its Live Audio feature for users who want to just broadcast sound and not video.

By 2017, Facebook was offering automatic captioning for Pages’ videos, and was developing a voice search feature. And this year, Facebook began trying voice clips as status updates and Stories for users around the world who might have trouble typing in their native tongue. But executives haven’t spoken much about the voice initiatives.

It’s still unclear exactly what Facebook’s Aloha will become. It could be a de facto operating system or voice interface and transcription feature for Facebook’s smart speaker and apps. It could become a more full-fledged voice assistant like M, but with audio. Or perhaps it could become Facebook’s bridge to other voice ecosystems, serving as Facebook’s Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action.

When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?,” he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.”

Facebook design head loud on voice, silent on Alexa and hardware

Voice is chat’s next battleground

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2N6EkiW via IFTTT

#IFTTT #iraidajzsmmwtv

0 notes

theinvinciblenoob · 6 years ago

Link

Aloha voice

Speaker and camera patents

Facebook awarded patent for speaker

Patents awarded to Facebook show designs for a camera (left) and video camera (right)

Instagram voice messaging

The long road to Voicebook

When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?,” he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.”

Facebook design head loud on voice, silent on Alexa and hardware

Voice is chat’s next battleground

via TechCrunch

#IFTTT #TechCrunch

0 notes

fmservers · 6 years ago

Text

Say “Aloha”: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions

But Facebook’s voice could be drowned out by the din of the crowd if it doesn’t get moving soon. All the major mobile hardware and operating system makers now have their own voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung Bixby, as well as their own smart speakers. In Q2 2018, Canalys estimates that Google shipped 5.4 million Homes, and Amazon shipped 4.1 million Echoes. Apple’s HomePod is off to a slow start with less than 6 percent of the market, behind Alibaba’s smart speaker according to Strategy Analytics. Facebook’s spotty record around privacy might deflect potential customers to its competitors.

Aloha Voice

youtube

Labeled “Aloha Voice Testing”, as a user speaks while in a message thread, a horizontal blue bar expands and contracts to visualize the volume of speech while recognizing and transcribing into text. The code describes the feature as having connections with external WiFi or Bluetooth devices. It’s possible that the software will run on both Facebook’s hardware and software, similar to Google Assistant that runs both on phones and Google Home speakers.

Facebook declined to comment on the video, with its spokesperson Ha Thai telling me “We test stuff all the time – nothing to share today but my team will be in touch in a few weeks about hardware news coming from the AR/VR org.” It unclear if that hardware news will focus on voice and Aloha or portal, or if it’s merely related to Facebook’s Oculus Connect 5 conference on September 25th.

A source previously told me that years ago, Facebook was interested in developing its own speech recognition software designed specifically to accurately transcribe how friends talk to each other. These speech patterns are often more casual, colloquial, rapid, and full of slang than the way we formally address computerized assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home.

If Facebook can figure this out, it could offer its own transcription features in Messenger and elsewhere on the site so users could communicate across mediums. It could potentially let you dictate comments or messages to friends while you have your hands full or can’t look at your screen. The recipient could then read the text instead of having to listen to it like a voice message. The feature could also be used to power voice navigation of Facebook’s apps for better hands-free usage.

Speaker And Camera Patents

Facebook awarded patent for speaker

A new patent filing reveals Facebook was considering building a smart speaker as early as December 26th, 2016 when it filed a patent for a cube-shaped device. The patent diagrams an “ornamental design for a speaker device” invented by Baback Elmieh, Alexandre Jais, and John Proksch-Whaley. Facebook had acquired Elmieh’s startup Nascent Objects in September of that year and he’s now a technical project lead at Facebook’s secretive Building 8 hardware lab.

Patents awarded to Facebook show designs for a camera (left) and video camera (right)

Instagram Voice Messaging

And finally, Instagram is getting deeper into the voice game too. A screenshot generated from the code of Instagram’s Android app by Wong reveals the development of a voice clip messaging feature heading to Instagram Direct. This would allow you to speak into Instagram and send the audio clips similar to a walkie-talkie, or the voice messaging feature Facebook Messenger added back in 2013.

You can see the voice button in the message composer at the bottom of the screen, and the code explains that to “Voice message, press and hold to record”. The prototype follows the recent launch of video chat in Instagram Direct, another feature TechCrunch broke the news on thanks to Wong’s research. An Instagram spokesperson declined to comment, as is typical when features are spotted in its code but aren’t publicly testing yet, saying “unfortunately nothing more to share on this right now.”

The Long Road To Voicebook

Facebook has long tinkered in the voice space. In 2015, it acquired a natural language processing startup Wit.ai that ran a developer platform for building speech interfaces, though it later rolled Wit.ai into Messenger’s platform team to focus on chatbots. Facebook also began testing automatically transcribing Messenger voice clips into text in 2015 in what was likely the groundwork for the Aloha feature seen above. The company also revealed its M personal assistant that could accomplish tasks for users, but it was only rolled out to a very limited user base and later turned off.

It’s still unclear exactly what Facebook’s Aloha will become. It could be a defacto operating system or voice interface and transcription feature for Facebook’s smart speaker and apps. It could become a more full-fledged voice assistant like M but with audio. Or perhaps it could become Facebook’s bridge to other voice ecosystems, serving as Facebook’s Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action.

When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?”, he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.”

Facebook design head loud on voice, silent on Alexa and hardware

Voice is chat’s next battleground

Via Josh Constine https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

0 notes

sheminecrafts · 6 years ago

Text

Say ‘Aloha’: A closer look at Facebook’s voice ambitions

Aloha voice

youtube

Speaker and camera patents

Facebook awarded patent for speaker

Patents awarded to Facebook show designs for a camera (left) and video camera (right)

Instagram voice messaging

The long road to Voicebook

When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?,” he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.”

Facebook design head loud on voice, silent on Alexa and hardware

Voice is chat’s next battleground

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2N6EkiW via IFTTT

#IFTTT #iraidajzsmmwtv

0 notes