Download Windows 12 Lite ISO 64 bit Release Date, Features ISO Microsoft. windows 12 lite Update from windows 10 update service. windows 12 lite linux update free.
With the new version of the popular Windows system, called Windows 10 , a large number of improvements are coming to our computers, whether they are desktops, laptops, and even tablets and smartphones. Windows 10 is a renewed system loaded with surprises. Check out this article to upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 or 8.1, and also to learn how to change your username to Windows 10. Surely, it has so many new features that it would be impossible to find them all, but, for now, many secrets are known that we are going to share with all of you so that you can get the most out of your computers.
ACTIVATE CORTANA TO ANSWER WHEN YOU CALL HER
Cortana is an innovative tool, which can work not only when you click on her with the mouse, but also when you speak her name using a microphone. To activate the automatic speech recognition function, go to the Cortana search icon, located in the taskbar, click on the Notebook icon, from the drop-down bar, then click on Settings, and finally activate the “Hey Cortana” feature. As you say those words, Cortana will automatically wake up and listen to your requests.
USE NATURAL VOICE SEARCH WITH CORTANA
Cortana won’t just answer simple questions like: open the internet. This tool is capable of recognizing natural voice commands , such as: “Find me photos from June”, “Find documents with Windows 10”, and other similar requests.
FULLY CUSTOMIZE THE START MENU
The start menu returns to Windows 10 in a renewed version: now it combines the applications we knew in Windows 8 and the classic style that users remember so much: we will be able to organize the “tiles” of modern applications to our liking (their position, their size) and we can even eliminate them completely and leave a menu similar to the original Windows 7.
OPENS THE BROWSER IN “THIS PC” BY DEFAULT
When you open a new browser window in Windows 10, it opens by default in a place called “Quick Access,” which shows all the recent folders and documents we’ve used. It usually used to open to This PC or My Computer, which helped us easily find specific hard drives and folders. If you want to see This Computer again as the default folder when opening the explorer, open any window, go to the upper tab called “View”, then to “Options” and in the “General” section select the option ” Open Windows Explorer “. files on This PC .”
UPDATE YOUR SYSTEM FROM YOUR LOCAL NETWORK AND FROM THE INTERNET
From time to time, Microsoft releases updates that improve Windows and protect it from malware keeping it up-to-date is very important. Of course, the wait can be less long if we activate a function that is hidden in the system. We will have to open the start menu, go to settings, then Update and security, then enter advanced options, and finally enter “Choose the way you want updates to be delivered.” We can configure the system to detect the updates downloaded to other computers on our local network and apply them automatically, saving a lot of time.
EASILY RECORD APP AND GAME VIDEOS
If you like making tutorials and uploading them to the network, thanks to Windows 10 you have a native tool prepared to record high-quality videos of any application or game: it’s the game bar. Pressing the Windows + G keys will bring up a small window with the recording controls. Once the video is recorded, we can search for it in the “Videos” folder of the Windows library.
MOVE WINDOWS BETWEEN VIRTUAL DESKTOPS
Windows 10 incorporates the ability to create several simultaneous virtual desktops where you can organize your windows: you can have one for work, another for leisure, etc. We can access them by pressing the Windows + Tab keys. If we “grab” an open window with our mouse, we can move that window to any desktop.
ACCESS “GOD MODE”
Another of the most useful hidden functions of Windows 10 is to activate the so-called ” God Mode “, a term used in video games to activate invincibility tricks. In Windows it is used to access advanced and useful system functions. To activate it we will simply have to create a new folder and, in its name, copy the following.
USE OFFLINE MAPS
If you need to plan a trip or explore a specific area in the Windows Maps application, but you are not going to have a network connection, you can download the maps of a region to access them whenever you want: go to Settings within the application Maps, and in the “Offline maps” section, click on “Download or update maps”, here you can add areas to download or delete others that no longer interest you.
ACTIVATE TABLET MODE
Even if you’re using a desktop version of Windows, you can still use what’s called ” tablet mode ” which is activated from the action center (the notification icon next to the clock in the lower right corner). With the “tablet mode” we will enjoy an optimal environment to enjoy Windows and modern-style applications on a touch screen.
EASILY CHANGE SYSTEM COLORS
If you enter the start menu, access settings, and Personalization, you will be able to access a tab called colors where you can, very easily, change all the predominant colors of your Windows system: taskbar, translucent backgrounds, etc.
USE READING VIEW IN MICROSOFT EDGE
If you are an assiduous reader of articles on the net, you can end up with tired eyesight from the variety of colors on many information pages or blogs. Microsoft Edge, the new Windows 10 web browser, incorporates the so-called ” reading view “, which converts articles to a more “friendly” format for your eyes, removing all unnecessary visual elements from the web and leaving only images and text on a background with a neutral color.
Microsoft Office and Exchange has always been the backbone of many corporate and business enterprises. With the launch of Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft is taking its desktop/server system to the cloud, allowing professionals to access their emails, important documents, contacts and calendars from almost anywhere and from any device.
Microsoft Office 365 isn’t just your regular Microsoft Office on the web. It also consists of Outlook, SharePoint and Lync where you can access your email and collaborate with others. Some of you might think that Microsoft is late to the game and that Google Apps already has the area covered. You’re wrong. After trying Microsoft Office 365, I feel that Office 365 is much more superior (in terms of features and functionality) and is able to integrate better with your desktop/Exchange system. However, it’s also more expensive than Google Apps, starting at $6 per user. There are few components in Office 365: Office web app, Outlook web app, Lync website, and Team.
Office Web App
Microsoft has released the Office web app for the consumer. Once you’re signed in to your real Windows account, you can view, edit, and create documents with the Office web app. In Office 365, this same Office Web app is there too. The applications that it supports include Ms Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote.
Outlook Web App
The Outlook web app is quite handy and works exactly the same as the desktop version. The default email account is the office365 account, but you can easily configure it to sync with Outlook on your desktop. The calendar, contacts and tasks remain intact. In the contact section in Outlook, you can also select a contact and immediately start a chat session with him/her. This brings us to another Office 365 feature Lync.
Lync (IM)
Microsoft Lync, formerly known as Communications Server, is an instant messaging platform where you can send messages, audio, video, and VoIP. You can install the desktop client (supports Windows only) or receive messages via the web interface. For the desktop client, you can also share your desktop with others during the online meeting.
team site
The team site is where you can create a website for your business and also manage your documents in one central place. When you create a document in the Office web app, the document will be saved to the team site.
Advantage of using Office365
Well integrated Microsoft Office suite, all on the web. If your company is already using Microsoft Exchange, this will make it easier for you to interact and collaborate with each other. 99.9% availability guarantee. This is almost the industry standard. It also means that as long as you’re connected to the web, you’ll have access to your documents and emails.
Disadvantage of using Office365
Too complex – All in one solution. Either you get all the features or none. Google Apps united all the modules, but allowed you to access each of them individually. Too integrated You can only get the full potential of Office 365 if you’re running the Windows operating system and have a Windows Phone 7, or should I say, immerse yourself in a full Windows environment. All in all, for businesses looking to move to the cloud and be more productive at the office, Office365 is definitely a great choice. Although there are advantages and disadvantages, there is no doubt about the quality of its offer.
Viewing & restoring document revisions for Office 365
If you’re familiar with using the Office desktop applications, you know that revisions of the documents you work on are automatically saved and tracked within the document. If you need to look at an older revision or revert back to one, it’s as simple as opening the activity pane and clicking the desired version of the document. however it’s a little different when you aren’t using the Office desktop applications. If you’re away from your computer and need to view these documents using the Office online applications (through the Office portal), you may notice that you can’t find the activity pane to look at older versions. If you need to view or revert a document to a previous revision you can follow the steps in this article to do so.
Note: In order to access the document revisions, you need to have the document in question saved either in OneDrive or inside a SharePoint location
How to access document revisions online
First make sure you log in to your Office 365 account
From the portal, open up OneDrive or SharePoint depending on where you have the document saved
Navigate to where the file is saved
Once you’ve located the file, right click on it (or click the 3 dots button that appears when you hover the mouse cursor over it) and click Version History from the menu that appears
The version history pane will open, find the version you’re looking for and right-click it (or click the 3 dots button) and then click Restore from the menu. This will make that specific version active and a new version should appear at the top of the list.
Now right click the X button in the top right to close the Version history pane, then right click on the document in the list of files and choose to open it in the online app (e.g. Word Online, Excel Online)
That revision will open in the chosen app and allow you to view and edit it if necessary (be aware changes are saved automatically with the Office online apps)
If you need to revert or access another revision just follow this process again, as many times as needed. Accessing revisions online is currently not the most intuitive, Microsoft are actively updating their Office online apps and this process may change and become easier in the future. If this process changes at all we will update this article, but for now this is the best way to access version histories of your OneDrive / SharePoint files.
If, your computer won’t boot or Windows crashes when you turn it on Just do some windows troubleshooting . What could have happened? And more importantly, what can you do to try to fix it? Today we bring you a guide with solutions for the most common problems when Windows does not start correctly or shows errors when doing so.
We are going to explain windows troubleshooting it in the simplest and most basic way possible, and we are going to try to cover as many cases as possible. We will mention from how to try to repair slow startups to when a computer does not start, going through the possible failures that you may have after updates or blue screens. As we always say at Xataka Basics, we invite you to also leave us your own tips in the comments section.
When Windows starts too slow
If the problem is not so much that the computer does not start, but that it starts too slowly , the measure is always to prevent windows troubleshootingsome particularly heavy applications from starting together with the operating system . To do so, press Control + Alt + Delete and choose the Task Manager option . In it, click on More details to access all the information. Once you are in the full version of the Task Manager , click on the Startup section of the top row . You will see a list with all the applications that try to start at startup. There are two important columns here, the one for Status because if it says Enabled it is because the application starts automatically when the PC is turned on, and the one for Startup Impact because it tells you how much this application penalizes your computer when it starts up when the computer starts.
Windows troubleshooting With this data you can now make informed decisions. Now, click on the application that you want to stop starting automatically when you turn on the computer (1), and once you have selected it , click on the Disable button so that it stops starting, and to run it you have to be the one who starts it deliberately . Try to do it with the applications that have the greatest impact on your computer’s startup, something that will be indicated in the Startup Impact column .
No USB or memory cards connected
Sometimes a Windows update can cause the computer not to start due to a conflict with an external memory drive. And even if there hasn’t been an update, it’s also possible that the BIOS could be configured to try to boot the OS from external storages first. In any of the cases, an important step that you must take is to remove all the external memories that are connected , both USB drives and microSD cards or any other. Then, restart the computer again. If you are a DVD or Bluray reader, also remove the disc just in case.
Some accessory or peripheral does not work well
On other occasions, even though Windows seems to start correctly, it is some peripheral or component of your computer that does not seem to work correctly. In these cases, it is recommended to update the drivers of the computer . This is usually something that Windows 10 does itself, but you can also use third-party applications to update Drivers , and sometimes they are even more effective. Of course, the best ones are usually paid. A driver or controller is a small file present in each component, accessory and hardware on your computer. Its function is to act as a ‘link’ between the operating system you have installed and the hardware or connected peripherals, both internal and external. To do this, these files have information with which your operating system knows what is connected, how to get to the component to use it, and how it works or what it can do with each one.
Updating a driver can serve both to avoid bugs and errors that have been discovered and to solve problems or fix them in the event that they have stopped working correctly. To find out which drivers are missing from your computer, open the file explorer and right-click on This PC . In the pop-up menu, click on the Manage option that will come in second position. A window will open with the Computer Management options , which includes all the information about your computer’s components, system tools and some advanced services. Here, in the left column you must display the System Tools options , and once they are displayed, click on the Device Manager option that will appear last within them.
In the center of the window you will see a list with all the hardware and devices connected to your computer , all organized in different categories. You can’t see it in the screenshot, but devices that have compatibility problems or are missing drivers will have a yellow indication to let you know that they are not working correctly. If you right click on one of the hardware items in the list , a pop-up menu will appear to act on it. You can update the driver to try to check for a new version of the driver. If this isn’t enough, you can also uninstall the device, which will erase the driver and make Windows try to install it from scratch the next time you plug it in. And the other option is to use a third-party application to update drivers , since these also usually have a function to detect those that fail in Windows, and sometimes they are even more effective. Especially the paid ones. By using it, I have purchased Driver Easy , but in our article on updating drivers we gave you some free suggestions. Here we remind you in case you want to consider them:
Drivers Cloud : If you are looking for security over simplicity, this application is very useful as it does not try to install anything behind you. It is complemented by the product’s website, and after analyzing your hardware it lets you choose drivers to download from the web, and you can download an installer to install them all at once. You can download it from its official website .
Slimware DriverUpdate : With a much more visual interface in which a graph stands out in which you will see what proportion of drivers you have without updating, it is another alternative with which to update or uninstall drivers, create backup copies of the installed ones, and schedule periodic updates to always be up to date. You can download it from its official website .
Driver Booster : It has a very simple interface to understand and use, where it shows your outdated drivers, tells you how outdated they are and offers you to update them with a single click. It is exclusive to Windows, and works on all versions starting from XP. Be careful with its installer, if you do not choose to customize the installation it has an extra application. You can download it from its official website .
Snappy Driver Installer : A simple alternative that has the added ability to update drivers offline. First, it asks you to download the information on the updatable drivers, and then you can view and choose the ones you want to install. You can download it from its official website .
Driver Talent : Another tool that not only allows you to update drivers, but also to repair those that are corrupt or make backup copies of those that you already have updated. It has two versions, one free with the most basic options and another Pro that you can purchase for $16.95. You can download it from its official website .
Driver Doctor : Another option similar to Drivers Cloud for those who seek security over comfort. It analyzes your system, but it doesn’t update the drivers, instead it links you to a website from which you can download them to install them by hand. You can download it from its official website .
Windows Update : But if everything goes well on your computer and your Windows, you won’t need to resort to any of these applications because Windows Update will do everything automatically. And if it fails and you don’t want to resort to third-party apps, you always have the option to reset Windows.
Find out what’s wrong with safe mode
There will be times when you don’t know if you have errors due to a Windows problem or an installed application. In this case, safe mode can help you to start Windows only with certain elements, and thus rule out that they are the ones that fail. You have to go into Windows startup functions and choose windows troubleshooting. To do this, hold down Shift while clicking on Restart , or try to start Windows three times without success. From here, Windows suggests resetting your PC and other features that may vary from version to version of the operating system. The one you have to search for and click on is Advanced Options . When you enter the advanced options, tap on the Startup Settings option . In some versions of Windows this section does not appear directly in the first window, but you must first click on More advanced options so that it appears on the next page.
The name doesn’t say much, startup settings?, but what this option does is reboot the system to show the old menu where you can choose how Windows starts. The available options are those listed in the image, including Safe Mode with or without networking. Press the Restart button . You will then be shown a menu similar to this, where you can now choose to start Windows in safe mode. Choose the Safe Mode option if the menu appears in Spanish or Safe Mode , if it is in English. You can choose to activate it with network functions. If Windows starts normally, the operating system itself is fine, and the error may be with some program or application, or with a driver.
Find which app is giving you trouble starting up
Beyond the drivers, it is also possible that there is an application that is giving you problems when starting up. In this case, you will have to do a clean reboot . The first step for this is to disable all applications that start alongside the operating system . The idea is that once you start the system, then you go reactivating them until you find which one is causing the error.
But this clean reboot requires another step above . You have to press Windows + R at the same time to open the Run window , where you have to type the command msconfig and accept to open the system configuration. In it, first click on the Services tab (1) to view all the services installed on your computer, and then activate the option *Hide all Microsoft services (2) to not make changes to essential Windows services.
On many occasions, whether for work or leisure reasons, we spend a good number of hours sitting in front of a PC with Windows 10. And we named the Microsoft operating system because it is the most used on desktop computers, and by far. The truth is that Windows is powerful and secure software that has been with us since 2015, but it is not without problems.
It is true that Microsoft works hard to make this happen as few times as possible, but it is not 100% free. One of the main reasons in the sheer number of different PCs you have to deal with. And it is that we must know that there are hundreds of millions of computers with different combinations of hardware of greater or lesser depth. That is why this firm, present in the vast majority of them, sometimes has certain operating problems. In fact, it could be said that it is even logical and normal that some failures or errors occur when working with Windows 10 on our computer. In these same lines we are going to talk about the most common and usual problems that you are going to find on a day-to-day basis with Windows 10. These are the ones that have received the greatest number of reports from users over the year’s operating system life.
Installation of the operating system
There are some users who already encounter problems from the start, that is, during the installation of the operating system. Therefore we can say that there are those who begin to glimpse failures here even before starting the equipment. In fact, these problems that we are talking about are found by those who have to update from an installed version of Windows 7 or Windows 8.
This is usually done this way to avoid losing the data on the PC, but it doesn’t always work well. We can try to do it from a physical support or a USB memory. Many stores also give us only the license number that accredits us as legal users of Windows 10. Therefore, to install it, we can download the ISO of the system from the Microsoft website. Then we can activate that copy with the license that we have purchased, all with the media creation tool that you access from here.
Windows 10 startup crashes
If we have managed to install the system without any problem, another of the problems that we can find is when starting the software as such. It is true that Windows 10 has a much more optimized boot system than Windows 7 and previous versions, but it is not without its potential problems. Therefore, if the system boot does not finish or takes longer than normal, something is not working.
Remove programs from Startup
This, despite its seriousness, is more common than it should be, and one of the possible causes could be that you have too many programs starting next to the system . So some of these like antivirus or drivers are unavoidable, but others are completely unnecessary here. Therefore, one of the solutions that we propose in this case is to deactivate the programs that run at startup. We do this from the Task Manager , which we access with the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combination.
Here we go to the Startup tab and keep only the necessary programs active. To disable the ones we don’t want, right-click on each one and select Disable. This does not imply that they stop working, they will when we run them later and when we really need them.
Delays certain services
Many system services are also loaded at Windows startup , some basic ones without which Windows won’t work. But secondary services are also loaded that do not need to be active at all times. Therefore we can delay its execution for a few seconds, until the PC boots completely.
This will make your computer take less time to start and problems will be avoided. To do this, use the Windows + X key combination and go to Computer Management. In the new window we display Services and applications and click on Services . In the Startup type section we see those that start automatically with the system, so we right-click to customize its operation.
We click with the right mouse button on one of those that we want to delay and click on Properties. Now we can change its start-up and establish it as Automatic (Delayed start).
The PC crashes or when booting
Even more serious is the possible failure of the computer to freeze, restart unexpectedly, or show a blue screen or BSOD when booting . Here we must start the computer in safe mode to, on the screen that appears, select the option Repair computer.
Next, on the Choose an option screen, we opted for the proposal that is displayed and that says Fix problems. Then click on Startup Repair.
With everything and with this, in this safe mode we also find some other utilities of interest for when we have problems with Windows . We can uninstall the latest updates, open a command prompt window to run commands , or restore the system.
Problems with Windows updates
This is one of the biggest handicaps faced by Microsoft almost since the beginning of Windows 10, the updates. No matter how many efforts the Redmond firm has been making in this regard over the years, it has not been able to fully alleviate them. And it is something logical, as we mentioned before.
As we told you, one of the most common failures in the Microsoft system is caused by Windows Update. This is the Windows 10 update system and it usually occurs when trying to update the operating system . This is something that we will not be able to carry out, and as a result we will find a multitude of error codes. One of the possible solutions with the updates is found by opening the File Explorer. Here, in the window that appears, we are located in the following path:
C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download
Here we can delete all the files and folders that that specific folder contains. After that we use the Win + X key combination and open a Command Prompt window with administrator permissions. Once we have it on the screen, we type the following commands pressing Enter after each one:
net stop wuauserv net stop bits rd /s /q %windir%SoftwareDistributionDownload net start wuauserv net start bits wuauclt.exe /updatenow
Once we have done all this, we can try the update again to see if there are no problems now.
A high consumption of RAM and CPU memory
There are still many users who, despite the years that Windows 10 has been with us, refuse to migrate from previous versions. For example, Windows 7 is no longer even supported by the firm, but it has millions of users. One of the main reasons that are explained in this sense is the high consumption of RAM and CPU . This is something that becomes especially evident in PCs that are somewhat old or limited in terms of specifications.
Well, if this happens, it can cause the computer to run much slower, which affects all installed applications. As you can imagine, in this regard we can make several decisions to try to alleviate the problem. First of all, if we have an old PC, we should try to avoid certain high-performance programs that take up all the resources. Here we refer to certain next-generation games, video editing programs, design with high-definition photos , etc.
In the same way, we recommend that you thoroughly scan the PC in search of any possible malware. And it is that many of these viruses and malicious codes seriously affect the consumption of computer resources, negatively, of course. That is why all of a sudden we can find, for no apparent reason, that Windows 10 is consuming 100% of the computer’s RAM and CPU. This is something that we can solve by using Windows Defender, for example, the system antivirus . With everything and with this, we can also use any other third-party security solution.
Windows 10 won’t come out of hibernation
It is very possible that many of you already know with the passage of time and use of Windows, that the hibernation state is an excellent solution. This allows us to save a good amount of time as well as battery if we are not going to use your equipment for a while. In the event that we intend to use it again later after that time and at the same point where we left it, hibernation is perfect.
In addition, this exit from the hibernation state occurs almost instantaneously, just move the mouse a little or press any key on the keyboard. But sometimes, as has been known on many occasions, the hardware of some older computers can have problems here. These occur when we want to wake up the computer after using this hibernation method, forcing the user to press the power button. This causes us to lose all the files that we had not previously saved.
As a general rule, this is a problem that is usually related to the hardware of the equipment itself. At this point, one of the solutions that we can use in this regard, we can try to update the BIOS of the PC. This is something that we can also do with the motherboard controllers. But if we cannot solve it, another of the solutions that we can use is deactivating hibernation in Windows 10. This is something that we can do from the power plans section .
Certain peripherals and components stop working
The PC as such is made up of a good number of hardware elements, some more important than others. It is evident that there are basic ones for the operation of the equipment, such as the CPU, the GPU, the RAM memory, or the disk drives. But we cannot leave out others such as the screen, the keyboard , the mouse , the network card, the Bluetooth , etc.
But of course, whatever we are talking about, the problems begin when any of these suddenly stop working. This is something that also occurs on more occasions than we would really like, so we must try to resolve it as soon as possible. One of the most common reasons why these failures can occur with certain components is due to the drivers.
These are small pieces of software that make communication between the hardware and Windows possible. Therefore, if any of them is damaged or has not been updated, it fails, which affects the device. Therefore, to update these elements, we can use the Device Manager. We access this by right-clicking on the Start menu. Then we look for the entry of the component with problems and click with the right mouse button to update the corresponding drivers.
How to avoid problems in Windows 10
These are some of the most common Windows problems, but the truth is that we can find many more. The list would be almost endless, but what we can do is take certain precautions that help us in this regard. To say that some of these problems are unavoidable since they are Windows 10 bugs that appear unexpectedly.
But whatever kind they are, we have the possibility of reducing their appearance with some basic steps in Windows maintenance and thus avoiding problems. One of the most important measures, although some are somewhat reluctant, is to keep Windows 10 always up to date. This can prevent us from a multitude of failures and problems of all kinds. It is necessary to know that if after an update the computer suffers a failure, it is likely that its solution will arrive in the same way, with another update.
We can also tell you that this is something that is extensible to controllers or drivers that we talked about before. In the same way, it is interesting to keep all installed programs updated, both from their websites and from the Microsoft Store . Likewise, it will never hurt to keep Windows Defender, or the antivirus that we use, up to date and scan the computer from time to time.
Microsoft’s new AI bot VALL-E can be trained with only a three-second audio sample An innovative text-to-speech AI model named VALL-E has been created by a team of Microsoft researchers. Once trained, it can replicate a person’s voice almost perfectly. The team requires only a three-second audio sample to train this Microsoft’s new AI bot. Moreover, the researchers claim that once the AI tool learns a specific voice, VALL-E can synthesize audio of that person saying anything, and do it in a way that attempts to preserve the speaker’s emotional tone, as well as the environment where the speaker is in. The developers of Microsoft’s VALL-E may be utilized for high-quality text-to-speech applications, and speech editing, which would allow a person’s voice recording to be altered and changed from a text transcript, and in conjunction with other generative AI models like GPT-3 to create content. A technique dubbed Encode, which Meta revealed in October 2022, is the foundation for Microsoft’s VALL-E. VALL-E produces discrete audio codec codes from text and acoustic cues, in contrast to conventional text-to-speech systems that typically synthesize speech by modifying waveforms. VALL-E decodes a person’s voice into tokens after conducting a voice analysis. Then it matches what it “knows” about how that voice would sound if it spoke additional words with the training data.
Microsoft has trained the synthesis abilities of its new VALL-voice E using the audio library LibriLight, which was assembled by Meta, the parent company of Facebook. More than 7,000 different people are represented among the 60,000 hours of English-language speech that were primarily extracted from LibriVox public domain audiobooks. For Microsoft’s new AI bot to produce an acceptable result, the voice in the three-second sample must closely resemble a voice in the training data.
In addition to preserving a speaker’s vocal timbre and emotional tone, VALL-E can also imitate the “acoustic environment” of the sample audio. For example, the audio output will simulate the acoustic and frequency characteristics of a phone call in its synthetic output, which is another way of saying that it would sound like a phone call. Furthermore, Microsoft’s samples (included in the “Synthesis of Diversity” section) demonstrate how VALL-E may generate various voice tones by changing the random seed used during creation. Microsoft AI Research is creating artificial intelligence machines that complement human reasoning to augment and enrich our experience and competencies.
WHAT IS MICROSOFT’S VALL-E?
Vall-E is essentially a text-to-speed (TTS) system that lets you input a script of text that it then turns into audio. In the past, such software has always generated audio that either sounds incredibly robotic or costs an arm and a leg for “human voices”. Vall-E, a neural codec language model, has been trained using 60,000 hours of English speed and produces results that are as close to a human talking as possible. Microsoft has claimed that its AI tool can “significantly outperform” other TTS tools in the market. What actually makes it stand out isn’t its ability to sound like you. It’s the ability to capture emotion in speech, which is what makes it sound like someone is actually talking.
USING MICROSOFT’S VALL-E
At this point, Microsoft has not created a free-to-use version the way OpenAI did with ChatGPT. They have, however, posted a bunch of samples on their website, showing the range of results you can get with their tool. Of course, while the tool can be used to help the mute speak, it can also be used to create really good deep fakes and audios of known personalities. Between this, Chat GPT, and Dall-E, we’ll soon be living in a world where we won’t be able to distinguish between content created by humans and machines.
Don’t fall off the VALL-E
The voice-matching AI was trained on 60 000 hours of speech data in English, using 3-second voice clips as prompts. Particular voices were used to teach it how to generate content. Examples of Microsoft VALL-E’s work were shared by GitHub. Some sound authentic. Others still have a robotic tone to them. With a bigger sample size of voices, the feature seems set to spark a new dimension in vocal imitation.
The quick development and evolution of AI continue to raise ethical issues. What do you do when someone is able to capture a mere three seconds of your voice and uses it to say something you’d never say? It’s possible that you’ll be cancelled for actions that you never took.