Until recently, voice cloning — or voice banking, as it was then known — was a customized industry which served those at risk of losing the power of speech to cancer or surgery. Synthesizing（合成） a voice was a long and expensive process. It meant recording many phrases, each spoken many times, with different the history of the KidPass blog emotional emphase（s重音）and in different contexts (statement, question, command and so forth), in order to the tips on writing good articles online cover all possible pronunciations.
Not any more. Software exists that can store pieces of recorded speech which is merely five milliseconds long, each marked with a precise pitch（音高）. These can be put together to make new words, and adjusted individually so that they fit harmoniously into their new sonic homes. This is much cheaper than conventional voice banking, and permits novel uses to be developed.
This year Vivo Text plans to release an app that lets users select the emphasis, speed and level of happiness or sadness with which individual words and phrases are produced. Mr. Silbert refers to the emotive quality of the human voice as “the ultimate instrument”. Yet this power also troubles him. Vivo Text licenses its software to Hasbro, an American toymaker keen to sell increasingly interactive playthings. Hasbro is aware, Mr. Silbert notes, that without safeguards a naughty child might, for example, type impolite words on his mother’s smartphone in order to see a younger sibling burst into tears on hearing them spoken by a toy using mum’s voice.
More troubling, when tested against voice-biometrics software like that used by many banks to block unauthorized access to accounts, more than 80% of the fake voices tricked the computer. Alan Black, one of Festvox’s developers, thinks systems that rely on voice-ID software are now “deeply, fundamentally insecure”.
Dr. Saxena and his colleagues asked volunteers if a voice sample belonged to a person whose real speech they had just listened to for about 90 seconds. The volunteers recognized cloned speech as such only half the time (ie, no better than chance). The outcome, according to George Papcun, an expert witness paid to detect fake recordings produced as evidence in court, is the appearance of a technology with “enormous potential value for disinformation”.
As might be expected, countermeasures to recognize such deception （ 欺 骗 ） are being developed.
Nuance Communications, a maker of voice-activated software, is working on algorithms（算法） that detect tiny skips in frequency at the points where slices of speech are stuck together. Adobe, best known as the marker of Photoshop, an image-editing software suite, says that it may add digital watermarks to speech synthesized by a voice-cloning software called VoCo it is developing. Such technology may help computers recognize suspicious speech. Even so, it is easy to imagine the chaos that might be created in a world which makes it easy to put authentic-sounding words into the mouths of opponents — be they colleagues or heads of state.
1.Paragraphs 1 and 2 are mainly about .
A. significant elements influencing voice cloning
B. possible applications of voice cloning in reality
C. complexities of creating a synthetic copy of a voice
D. differences between traditional and existing voice banking
2.What’s Hasbro’s attitude towards Vivo Test’s new app?
A. Optimistic. B. Conservative.
C. Unconcerned. D. Subjective.
3.The experiment carried out by Dr. Saxena and his colleagues shows that volunteers .
A. identified cloned speech in about 45 seconds
B. preferred a real speech to a voice sample
C. proved only a little harder to fool than software
D. found it hard to use the software to record their voices
4.What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. Investments should be increased to advance voice cloning.
B. Long-term measures should be taken to popularize the idea of voice cloning.
C. Disagreements among firms about the way to treat voice cloning are getting serious.
D. Problems of voice cloning are unavoidable despite the efforts that have been made.
Police around the world have for almost 100 years relied on lie detectors to help spot criminals. But there has long been much skepticism in the scientific and legal communities about the lie detector’s reliability. Hopefully, it could soon be no longer in use.
Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have made a breakthrough, developing a more reliable method to help conduct interviews. Rather than just record changes in pulse, blood pressure, sweating and breathing, the new system involves monitoring full-body motions to provide an indicator of signs of guilty feelings.
There is a basic fact that liars tend to keep moving their hands and feet and so an all-body motion suit will pick this up. The suit contains 17 sensors that record movement in 23 joints up to 120 times per second.
“The lie detector has been around since the 1920s and by measuring physiological stress caused by anxiety, you can only get a success rate of about 60%.”, said Ross Anderson, professor of security engineering at Cambridge University.
He said the new method, by contrast, achieved a reliability rating of over 70% and he was quite sure that they would be able to do better. In one of their experiments, the team has already achieved more than 80%.
The experiment involved 180 students and employees at Lancaster University, of which half were told to tell the truth and half to lie. They were each paid ￡7.50 for their participation in the 70-minute experiment, involving two test.
Some were interviewed about a computer game “Never End” that they played for seven minutes, while others lied about playing it having only been shown notes about it.
The second test involved a lost wallet containing ￡ 5. Some were asked to bring the wallet to a lost-and-found box while others hid it and lied about it.
“Overall, we correctly classified 82.2% of the interviewees as either being truthful or dishonest.”, the report said.
But the use of all-body suits is expensive — they cost about ￡30,000 — and can be uncomfortable, so Anderson and his colleagues are now looking at low-cost alternatives.
1.The researchers used the all-body motion suit to .
A. discover people’s joint problems
B. record people’s changes in their health
C. help find out interviewees’ mental activities
D. prevent liars from moving their hands and feet
2.What is the main disadvantage of the lie detector?
A. It has a low success rate B. It is very uncomfortable
C. It is too complex to use D. It costs a lot of money
3.How does Anderson feel about the new method?
A. Confused B. Confident
C. Doubtful D. Disappointed
New York City. Freelance
The KidPass blog is created by contributions from awesome freelance writers who work from home, and are excited to share their experiences and recommendations for kids’ activities around New York City! KidPass is flexible, so it allows parents like us to spend more time with their kids and work from home or anywhere they like, while building a great resource of recommendations for other parents.
We are hiring freelance writers who can contribute articles to our blog. We pay you for each article that we accept or approve starting at $20 for short articles and $100+ for longer articles with original research, photos, and videos.
If you enjoy being a parent “in the know”, researching new kids’ activities online, or going around your neighborhood to visit new kids’ centres, indoor play spaces, events, or classes, then KidPass could be great for you!
About you:
*Possess a friendly, confident writing style.
*Work from wherever you want.
*Able to explore kid classes and activities in your neighborhood.
*Take photos and videos if you are interested in writing longer research pieces for us.
*Prompt in communication, responsible and able to meet deadlines.
To apply, submit the following:
*Two writing samples that have not been published elsewhere and not been copied.
*For one sample, please include a list/ round-up of five local kids’ classes for a certain age group in your neighborhood.
*For the second sample, please include a single review of one of the kids’ classes/activities and include pictures.
*Submit these by email and include a brief introduction to yourself.
1.What do we know about the KidPass blog?
A. It has a lot to do with children’s activities.
B. It offers much advice on how to raise kids.
C. It teaches parents to design kids’ games online.
D. It encourages parents to accompany their kids more.
2.The passage mainly informs us of .
A. the history of the KidPass blog
B. the tips on writing good articles online
C. the importance of communicating with kids
D. the requirements of working as a freelance writer
I was getting ready for bed when the telephone rang unexpectedly. My mind quickly ran ______ the list of family members, but the voice on the other end of the line was only ______ familiar. “Lindy, this is Leslie,” she said. I didn’t know Leslie very well, so I was a little ______ that she would be calling me at 11:00 pm. I was afraid that it would be something really ______ to cause her to reach out to someone she ______ knew. However, she asked me a most ______ question. “Do you have any room for a turkey in your freezer?” she asked. “Sure,” I responded, feeling quite confused. My family was at the bottom of our food supply. “I will ______ when I get to your house,” Leslie replied.
We quickly ______ blue jeans from our nightclothes and prepared to meet her outside ______ the doorbell wouldn’t wake up our four children. Leslie and her husband came in a huge freezer truck. She explained that her husband serviced a small grocery store that had just lost its lease（ 租 约 ）. They had to ______ all the freezers before midnight. She thought it was a ______ to just throw all this food away so she began to go through her list of ______, dropping off food to anyone who she thought might be ______ to take it. Ours was the last place they planned to stop and anything left would have to be______
Still not fully ______ what had just occurred, I asked her, “When will you be coming back for all this?” Leslie replied, “It is yours! We have been ______ food since 5:00 pm and have ______ our list of contacts. Thanks a lot for helping us out.”
Leslie had no idea that we ______ to buy groceries. By the time the freezer food finally ______, buying groceries was no longer a problem. I admit that I’m still afraid of late night calls, assuming the worst, ______ then I remember that summer night when an acquaintance called me to send me turkeys.
1.A. into B. across C. through D. after
2.A. vaguely B. definitely C. reasonably D. hopefully
3.A. thrilled B. embarrassed C. surprised D. annoyed
4.A. creative B. impressive C. complex D. awful
5.A. normally B. barely C. precisely D. frequently
6.A. strange B. authentic C. fascinating D. tough
7.A. pause B. explain C. appreciate D. negotiate
8.A. hunted for B. put aside C. changed into D. took out
9.A. in that B. as if C. in case D. so that
10.A. empty B. replace C. fix D. remove
11.A. success B. shame C. chance D. duty
12.A. merchants B. rescuers C. contacts D. clients
13.A. considerate B. generous C. willing D. conscious
14.A. deleted B. leaked C. swapped D. dumped
15.A. describing B. understanding C. predicting D. observing
16.A. submitting B. fetching C. consuming D. delivering
17.A. packed B. exhausted C. refreshed D. concluded
18.A. struggled B. managed C. decided D. tended
19.A. ran out B. went off C. broke down D. caught on
20.A. for B. or C. and D. but
—Will it cost a lot to be an exchange student?
—________, but you can apply for scholarship and student loan.
A. I would imagine so B. You’ve got me there
C. By all means D. I’m with you on that
It is through years of research ________ scientists have discovered the relationship between social media addiction and depression.
A. that B. before
C. since D. when
