Global Voices

I participated in the Global Voices session at the Berkman Center and promised earlier to post my thoughts. The bad news is that we didn't get far enough to come up with a conclusive plan, but the good news is that I think we have enough momentum to move forward. The discuss was quite sober and practical and was not nearly as techno-utopian as we are often criticized of being and often tend to get.

I think the key difference between this meeting and others that I have attended was the large number of mediums (Wikipedia, OhmyNews, traditional journalism, human rights organizations, bloggers, TV and radio) as well as the strong regional diversity (Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Kenya, Korea, China, Japan, Pakistan, US and many others). Most of the people in the room were already members of a variety of organizations and projects so we tried to find a common ground. I think that we came to a consensus that freedom of speech and providing voice was extremely important and this could and should take various forms. We agreed to commit to working together to help each other in our efforts. I'll post more when we are a bit more organized, but you can see the discussion we are having on the blog, see a partial list of the participants on Hoder's wiki (it will be moved to a permanent place soon), see a log of the real-time transcripts provided by SJ and join us on #globalvoices on Freenode to chat. There are more resources on the blog. Sorry it's a bit disorganized right now. We will try to organize it more soon. One of the things we hope to do is be much more inclusive of ways to participate and not focus on any one mode. This will complicate things a bit, but I think it's worth it.

Recent new voices

Voices from Naropa

Cepstral Voices for Mac OS X

I love text-to-speech. I love it even more when it sounds clear. As such, I wrote Text Reader to save some documents as audio to my iPod. However, I realized later, Mac OS X's default voices .. well ... suck. Then I came across these gems. While the engine that takes words and creates phonemes is the same (it's Mac OS X) the end result from those phonemes is much clearer. Finally, after ten years of TTS on the Mac, someone releases a third-party voice for it.

Cepstral TTS Demo

Go on, get it. It's awesome.

We can help you hear the voices.

voices ring the halls

Global Voices Manifesto

(In other news: it feels pretty strange (and one would think that I'm used to darkness) that the sun does not come up at all during the day. Oh well. Luckily I have a beautiful, caring, wonderful and diarrhet ic lady here to keep me company. And a bunch of kids. :)

Voices from the Days of Slavery

Notes and Tips: Better Voices

Season's Greetings and Global Voices

It's 6AM Christmas morning in Japan right now. Today I'm reflecting on the past year and thinking about the future and I'm thinking about Global Voices. Hopefully most of you are with your family with some time to relax, think about priorities and reflect. I'm sure there are a lot of TV shows about "Peace on earth, goodwill to men," and you've probably sent and received a lot of UNICEF Christmas cards. You should be in the perfect mood to think about Global Voices. In the past, we had to rely on TV shows to try to feel empathy for people in other countries and organizations such as UNICEF to try to give our support to humanitarian efforts. These were and are noble efforts. However, at our fingertips, we have the ability to reach out and speak to, build bridges with and interact with those people we have been "wishing well" to in the abstract for all of these years. We have a long way to go before we are able to hear the voices of everyone on earth, but I believe that providing voices and building bridges is essential for the World Peace we all wish for.

We have changed the "Global Voices Manifesto" to "Global Voices Covenant 0.2". We have edited it for awhile on the wiki, but this version is frozen.

I'm not normally a very religious person, but I feel pretty religious about this.

Global Voices Covenant 0.2

We believe in free speech: in protecting the right to speak -- and the right to listen. We believe in universal access to the tools of speech.

To that end, we want to enable everyone who wants to speak to have the means to speak -- and everyone who wants to hear that speech, the means to listen to it.

Thanks to new tools, speech need no longer be controlled by those who own the means of publishing and distribution, or by governments that would restrict thought and communication. Now, anyone can wield the power of the press. Everyone can tell their stories to the world.

We want to build bridges across the gulfs of culture and language that divide people, so as to understand each other more fully. We want to work together more effectively, and act more powerfully.

We believe in the power of direct connection. The bond between individuals from different worlds is personal, political and powerful. We believe conversation across boundaries is essential to a future that is free, fair, prosperous and sustainable - for all citizens of this planet.

While we continue to work and speak as individuals, we also want to identify and promote our shared interests and goals. We pledge to respect, assist, teach, learn from, and listen to one other.

We are Global Voices.

Please take a look at the Global Voices blog. We're looking for additional people and projects to hook up with so let us know if you can contribute to Global Voices or have a project that could tie in with Global Voices.

PS I'm not sending any Christmas or New Years cards this year because I don't want to kill any more trees (and I'm lazy). I'm not sending email greetings because mass mailings are becoming indistinguishable from spam. Instead, I offer this blog entry. For the more personal touch, I'm relying on my birthday reminder to remind me to say hi to my friends in a way that distributes the work across the year.

UPDATE: Says _sj_ our translation expert. "Translate a few lines or a paragraph or put up a bad translation and leave a note above it saying it is incomplete."

Global Voices Online

Voices of the past at a click

'05: Think hot zones, hybrids and voices
over the Internet

Voices of the Dead Echo Across Algeria

Global Voices Infrastructure of
Democracy

Anyway, there's now a conference going on (with David Weinberger providing blog coverage) in Madrid (titled "Madrid conference on democracy, security and terrorism"), and they are drafting the first "Infrastructures of Democracy" -paper on the Global Voices Wiki.

Clinton voices concern for Lewinsky

A Small Victory - Voices 2004

asmallvictory.net/archives/007419.html
track this site | 3 links

Global Voices: Live from Kyrgyzstan

Joi Ito's Web: Season's Greetings and
Global Voices

joi.ito.com/archives/2004/12/25/seasons_greetings_and_global _voices.html
track this site | 3 links

Right Voices » What Liberal
Media???

rightvoices.com/archives/2004/09/03/what-liberal-media
track this site | 4 links

Clinton Voices Concern for Lewinsky (AP)

"The Future of Music - Voices in Your
Head"

Global Voices manifesto draft

There is now a draft of the Global Voices manifesto on Hoder's wiki. It will eventually be moved, but we're working on it there for now. Here is the current draft.

We believe in free speech, both in protecting the right to speak and extending access to the tools of speech. We define speech broadly to include many media that facilitate expression.

The broadest right of free speech has always extended primarily to those who owned technology for publishing and distribution, beginning with the printing press. It is now possible for anyone to publish and have access to a distribution channel via the Internet. It is our goal that everyone who wants to speak can be heard.

We believe in the power of direct connection and the freedom to connect. The bond between individuals from different worlds is personal, political and powerful.

We seek to create bridges that cross the gulfs that have traditionally divided us. When we cross these gulfs, we understand each other more fully, work together more effectively, and act more powerfully. With these bridges, we can do together what we could only dream of doing alone.

Direct connection is its own reward. However, in a world full of challenges, it is also the best path to building a future that is freer, fairer, more sustainable and more prosperous.

While we’re all committed to our own work as individuals, we also recognize our common interest and goals. We each speak for ourselves, but we’re all in this together. We pledge to respect, listen to, assist, and learn from one other. We are Global Voices.

Bush Voices Confidence; Will Lay Out
Agenda for a 2nd Term

tall buildings shake voices escape

Fourteen New Voices: A Reply to
Halley's Comment

Two voices clamor for Internet's
attention (SD Times)

Voices at the Crash Site Say the
Frontrunner Was Never Ahead

IT voices drowned in corporate
governance rush

Stolen Voices - The Challenge of
Securing VoIP

Food, Owners' Voices Coax Skittish Dog
(AP)

Braille for your Feet: A New World for
Blind and Visually Impaired

Vanguard Introduces New “FailSafe”
System of Detectable Warnings for Blind
and Visually Impaired.

IBM looks to improve Web usage for
visually impaired

Excellent New Library Service for the
Visually Impaired!

InfoEyes: an Online Information Community and Virtual Reference Services for the Visually Impaired

"Under the leadership of the Illinois State Library Talking Book and Braille Service, the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center and the Southern Illinois Talking Book Center are pleased to announce the opening of InfoEyes(http://www.infoeyes.org) on November 3, an online information community and virtual reference service for the visually impaired.

Talking book readers, other visually impaired individuals, and librarians are invited to use the trial service. Through the service, library customers can get assistance using the Internet, finding information on the Internet and in periodical databases and reader advisory service. Librarians will be using OCLC Question Point Enhanced software to provide services which include voice over IP, co-browsing, and application sharing. The trial will run through July 30, 2004. It is hoped that more libraries in other states serving the visually impaired will join Illinois in providing these services. Customers will be asked to evaluate the service and resources to help librarians in developing the service. Hours of service are posted on the web page and it is hoped that as more libraries join the service that hours can be extended. If customers want service outside of those hours, they can schedule an appointment or a reference session.

As the project develops, more information will be posted on the website. Tom Peters of TAP Information Services is the project evaluator and will write an evaluation of the project which will be made available when the project ends. If you have questions on the service, please contact Lori Bell (lbell@alliancelibrarysys tem.com) of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center or Diana Brawley Sussman (dbrawley@shawls.lib.il.us< /A>) of the Southern Illinois Talking Book Center." [The Handheld Librarian]

An innovative computer tool for visually
impaired:-

An innovative computer tool for visually
impaired

Tech grant aids visually impaired

U.S. web sites inaccessible for the
visually impaired, says Forrester

Six web sites commended for visually
impaired access

Apple offers free fix for visually
impaired iBooks

Kerala News: An innovative computer tool
for visually impaired

New Browser Companion Brings the Web to
Children, Speakers of Foreign Languages,
and the Visually Impaired

Cingular Makes Phone for Vision-Impaired

Cingular Makes Phone for Vision-Impaired
(AP)

OcuSource Creates Alliance with
InternetSpeech to Allow Vision Impaired
Visitors to “Listen” to the Internet by
Telephone

Pronexus Introduces ‘Get-Up to Speech’,
The Only Rapid Application Starter Kit
for Microsoft® Speech Server

Wizzard Expands Target Market With
WizzScribe Server-Based Speech
Recognition; Company Expands Portfolio
Of Offerings To Corporate Users With IBM
Speech Technology

"speech"

"the speech"

Speech I/O for the Wireless Web

You Talking to Me? Speech on Mac OS X

NetStumbler-Speech-0.01

Speech Dispatcher 0.4

"a scathing speech"

It's Not About Free Speech

So, about all this lawsuit stuff about revealing sources: it's not about bloggers being journalists. You're a fool if you're looking at it from that angle. They're suing to learn which person they trusted broke that trust; which person signed a contract and broke the terms of that contract.

In short, they're not terrorizing the bloggers, they're going after their own employees and/or developers to show that the NDA has teeth. As such, don't expect negative press to shut it down. They're going to keep going because the future of the NDA is at stake, not the future of blogging. I believe that Apple honestly couldn't give a rat's ass about that. You can bring free speech and journalism and sources and all that shit into this all you want, but in the end, Apple is protecting its right to hold people to contracts they sign. Don't expect this to go away any time soon, and especially not from public opinion.

If you sign a piece of paper, you better damn well read what you signed. That's all this comes down to. No need to lament the "death" of free speech (which was intended to mean you can't get arrested for speaking your mind, not revealing corporate secrets that you promised, in a contract, that you wouldn't, or conspiring with that person to reveal them); free speech isn't dead. You can lambast the government all you want, or be the whistle-blower at a corporation all you need. What's at stake here is Joe Blow saying he won't say a word and then telling the world everything he heard.

PDA Translates Speech

PDA Speech Translator

Inner Speech and Self-Awareness

"Hate Speech 101"

Free Speech

Macs get their voices back