Voice recognition computers find men harder to understand than women, Edinburgh University scientists have found.
In the study, researchers recorded phone calls and studied how much of conversations a recognition system could understand, and after analysis discovered that computers failed to understand men’s speech because they make “umm” and “err” sounds more frequently.
The research also revealed that computers made mistakes with words which sound similar and can occur in similar contexts, such as “I saw him” or “I saw them”, the BBC News reported.
Experts said it was hard to design a computer that could understand so many different kinds of voices but this research should help improve it.
Korean major LG’s `Ice Cream’ phone has come to India. The company has announced the launch of its latest clamshell handset, KF350, also known as the `Ice Cream’ phone, in India.
LG KF350 is targeted at the fairer sex and has been launched to mark the International Women’s Day (falling on March 8).
KF350 has a 2.2-inch QVGA, TFT display capable of displaying 262K colors. It also comes with an external LED Matrix display that can display the time and other notifications.
The mobile phone’s other features include a 3 megapixel camera, QVGA video recording, FM Radio and a full-fledged music player. There’s 25MB of internal memory that can be increased to 2GB using a microSD card. Connectivity options include WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML browser, Bluetooth and microUSB. EDGE over GPRS is also supported.
The 800 mAH battery phone supports a 5-hour talk time and a standby time of up to 350 hours.
Priced at Rs 7,949, LG KF350 is available in White-rosy, Blue and Pistachio colors.
People who regularly take ibuprofen may reduce their risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, suggests a new research.
The study involved 136,474 people who did not have Parkinson’s disease at the beginning of the research.
Participants were asked about their use of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), including aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen. After six years, 293 participants had developed Parkinson’s disease.
The study found regular users of ibuprofen were 40 per cent less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than people who didn’t take ibuprofen.
Also, people who took higher amounts of ibuprofen were less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease than people who took smaller amounts of the drug.
The results were the same regardless of age, smoking and caffeine intake.
“Ibuprofen was the only NSAID linked to a lower risk of Parkinson’s,” said Xiang Gao, with Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
“Other NSAIDs and analgesics, including aspirin and acetaminophen, did not appear to have any effect on lowering a person’s risk of developing Parkinson’s. More research is needed as to how and why ibuprofen appears to reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease,” Gao added.
The study will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd annual meeting in Toronto between April 10 to17th, 2010.