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A CNN reporter found the woman who is the voice of Siri on your iPhone.
Sandy Springs, Georgia (CNN) — For the past two years, she’s been a pocket and purse accessory to millions of Americans. She’s starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. She’s provided weather forecasts and restaurant tips, been mocked as useless and answered absurd questions about what she’s wearing.
She is Siri, Apple’s voice-activated virtual “assistant” introduced to the masses with the iPhone 4S on October 4, 2011.
Behind this groundbreaking technology there is a real woman. While the ever-secretive Apple has never identified her, all signs indicate that the original voice of Siri in the United States is a voiceover actor who laid down recordings for a client eight years ago. She had no idea she’d someday be speaking to more than 100 million people through a not-yet-invented phone.
Her name is Susan Bennett and she lives in suburban Atlanta.
Apple won’t confirm it. But Bennett says she is Siri. Professionals who know her voice, have worked with her and represent her legally say she is Siri. And an audio-forensics expert with 30 years of experience has studied both voices and says he is “100%” certain the two are the same. …
What’s it like at the commanding heights of the legal profession? NY Times with an answer.
Anyone who wonders why law school applications are plunging and there’s widespread malaise in many big law firms might consider the case of Gregory M. Owens.
The silver-haired, distinguished-looking Mr. Owens would seem the embodiment of a successful Wall Street lawyer. A graduate of DenisonUniversity and VanderbiltLawSchool, Mr. Owens moved to New York City and was named a partner at the then old-line law firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, and after a merger, at Dewey & LeBoeuf.
Today, Mr. Owens, 55, is a partner at an even more eminent global law firm, White & Case. A partnership there or any of the major firms collectively known as “Big Law” was long regarded as the brass ring of the profession, a virtual guarantee of lifelong prosperity and job security.
But on New Year’s Eve, Mr. Owens filed for personal bankruptcy.
According to his petition, he had $400 in his checking account and $400 in savings. He lives in a rental apartment at 151st Street and Broadway. He owns clothing he estimated was worth $900 and his only jewelry is a Concord watch, which he described as “broken.”
Mr. Owens is an extreme but vivid illustration of the economic factors roiling the legal profession, although his straits are in some ways unique to his personal situation. …
Wired published an item from Mother Jones on the seriousness of this year’s flu.
You’ve probably heard by now that this year’s flu season is a bad one. Below is a guide to the viruses that are going around now, plus a refresher on flu basics.
Is the flu widespread where I live?
Probably:How many people have died so far this year?
Twenty-eight children have died so far. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not keep track of adult deaths. That’s because states are not required to report flu deaths to the CDC. Older adults often die of flu complications or secondary infections rather than the flu itself, so tracking flu deaths is not an exact science. That said, in California, the death toll is currently at 146, including 95 people under the age of 65. At this time last year, just 9 Californians under 65 had died of the flu, and by the end of the season, a total of 106 people had died.How does this year’s season compare to last year’s?
As the chart below shows, so far, this season is milder in terms of number of cases. However, CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald notes that more people between the ages of 18 and 64 have been hospitalized for flulike symptoms this year than in previous years. This season’s predominant virus strain is H1N1—which, when it originated in 2009, also sent an unusually high number people in the 18-to-64 age range to the hospital. Epidemiologists don’t know why H1N1 hits younger people hard, but one theory, says McDonald, is that older adults have built up more immunity to it. H1N1 is similar to the virus that caused the Spanish Flu of 1918, and also to strains that circulated in the ’60s and ’70s. Another possible factor: Only about 30 percent of younger adults get flu shots, compared to about 40 percent of older adults. …
The A-10 Warthog is our ugliest airplane, but it protects ground troops. Real Clear Defense makes the case for keeping the plane in our quiver.
As the FY15 defense budget is finalized and the fiscal pressure of sequestration endures, there has been informed speculation that the Air Force will seek to retire its A-10 Warthog fleet. Congress has already prevented such a move in the National Defense Authorization Act, but yet the fight continues. Last week, RCD featured a proposal to transfer the A-10 to the Army. This week, J. Furman Daniel, III offers ten good reasons to save the beloved A-10.
1. It is proven
The A-10 is a tried and true design that has served our nation well. In an era of increasingly complex, expensive, and troubled weapons procurement, it is essential to have some systems that are solid and reliable. With only modest changes to the original design, the A-10 has been upgraded to meet the challenges of the future and deliver its trademark firepower, durability, survivability, and persistence to battlefield hotspots for decades to come.
2. It is cheap
The A-10 is and will continue to be cheap. While it is ugly, slow, and old fashioned, it remains the most cost effective way of delivering aerial firepower to the battlefield. While it is possible todrop ordinance and provide suppressive fire with other fighter platforms few would consider the F-22, F-35, F-15, or F-16 as ideal ways of performing this essential mission. In fact, the F-22 has been excluded from such missions and is in danger of becoming a “force in being” for “big wars” rather than an asset that can actually be used in the conflicts we are currently fighting. A rational force structure would retain the A-10 as the unglamorous but necessary “low” component of a “high-low mix” and would thus free our more expensive platforms for missions such as air superiority and strategic bombing that demand higher performance.
3. It is survivable …