Digital Discourse Database

Number of Posts: 16
Posts 1 - 10

Mirko Borsche lässt sich eine japanische Speisekarte vorlesen

(Mirko Borsche has a Japanese menu read to him)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 3.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | Google, translation
Summary | The new Google Translate app can translate texts that one has typed in or photographed and it can translate spoken language. It can be very useful when traveling to places where one does not understand the language. Users can just photograph a restaurant menu in a foreign language and have the Google Translate spit out the translation.
Image Description | N/A

Mit diesem Gadget kannst du Sprachbarrieren überwinden

(With this gadget you can overcome language barriers)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 7.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | translation
Summary | There is a new invention from China: an in-ear device that can directly translate speech. It lags three seconds behind real-time - plenty of time for silence to become awkward. It is also dependent on a wireless internet connection. So far it can translate these languages into Mandarin: French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, English, German.
Image Description | Getty images of three women with the German, Spanish, and Italian flag painted on their faces, as well as Getty images of a woman and a man using headphones together, buttons labeled with different languages, as well as GIFs of cats speaking French and Japanese and a film reference GIF (Anchorman).
Image Tags | female(s), gifs, male(s), text

Darauf können sich auch alte iPhone-Nutzer jetzt freuen

(This is what even old iPhone users can look forward to)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 19.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, emojis, smartphone, texting, translation, WhatsApp
Summary | The new iPhone operational system has a couple of new updates. There will be a new control unit and user surface making the iPhone increasingly similar to a full Mac. The in-house messenger iMessage has a lot of new emojis and stickers and allows the users to be more creative with their texting. It is however still no threat to WhatsApp because only Apple users can use iMessage. Siri no also speaks a bunch of new languages: she will be able to translate English into German, Chinese, Spanish, French or Italian.
Image Description | A screenshot of iOS 11.
Image Tags | female(s), smartphone

Schnauze, Bot!

(Shut up, bot!)

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 3.9.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | artificial intelligence, computer programming, Facebook, threat
Summary | News broke that two artificially intelligent Facebook chatbots, Bob and Alice, began communicating with one another using a language that not even their programmers could understand. The programmers then proceeded to kill the chatbots. Some may see this as a threat that artificial intelligence could overpower humans but the messages between the chatbots just operated on a different logic than human linguistic logic and did not seem very threatening at all.
Image Description | N/A

«In Japan steht für Danke, im Westen für Beten»

("In Japan it means thank you, in the West it signals praying")

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Newspaper | Sonntagszeitung
Date | 20.8.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | emojis, marketing, misunderstanding, research/study, texting, translation
Summary | Keith Broni, one of the first emoji translators world-wide, has been chosen from 500 applicants. He has researched the use of emojis at the University of London and he is an expert of how people from different cultures understand emojis. He works as a makerting consultant to various companies and advises them on how to use emojis as a corporation. Using emojis can be fraught with risk as hand gestures can mean very different things in different cultures. Even within the same culture emoji use can be risky. At this point, it is more risky not to use any emojis in casual texting because of the negativity effect which means that messsages without emojis seem cold or distanced.
Image Description | N/A

Der Herr der Smileys

(The Lord of Smileys)

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Newspaper | Tages-Anzeiger
Date | 29.7.2017
Language | German
Country | Switzerland
Topic Tags | computer programming, emojis, misunderstanding, translation
Summary | The Unicode chief, Mark Davis, assesses which new emojis make it into the Unicode which all major tech firms use. Anyone can propose an emoji but they have to argue why it is a globally significant symbol. They are then written into the Unicode which is a computer code that works for all languages. Tech firms then choose the font for the letters and emojis in which these symbols appear on their devices. Tech companies have chosen more similar emoji fonts over the last years to avoid misunderstandings between devices of different providers if the emojis are displayed differently.
Image Description | Portrait of the interviewee Mark Davis.
Image Tags | male(s)

Das Monster lebt

(The monster is alive)

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Newspaper | Die Zeit
Date | 31.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | censorship, cyberbullying, Facebook, law, threat
Summary | Facebook is hiring thousands of new employees to battle cyberbullying on their platform and to remove offensive material as quickly as possible. But a couple thousand are not very many people to combat wrongdoings of 2 billion users. German politicians are trying to make Facebook comply with local laws about removing illegal content from the internet but Facebook is nowhere near fulfilling those requirements.
Image Description | A photograph of a man holding a smartphone showing the Facebook logo and the face of a monster.
Image Tags | Facebook, hand(s), logo, male(s), smartphone

Facebook will Menschen mit dem Gehirn tippen lassen

(Facebook wants to let people type with their brain)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 21.4.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, privacy, research/study, translation
Summary | Facebook is working on ways to enable people to write without typing. Stanford university has succeeded in implanting electrodes into a woman's brain letting her type merely by thinking. This would also eventually enable people to write in languages that they do not speak because our brain does not function verbally. Facebook is however very clear about not wanting to read people's minds completely without their consent. The technology would only pick up selective thoughts wich users consent to sharing.
Image Description | N/A

Das sind die besten Apps, um Sprachen zu lernen

(These are the best apps to learn languages)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 24.5.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | digitized education, smartphone, translation
Summary | Babbel, Duolingo, and Busuu are currently among the most popular language learning apps. They are great for starters because all that is needed is a smartphone and some free time here and there, for instance while waiting for the bus. In order to learn a foreign language fluently, however, one needs to practice with native speakers.
Image Description | Hand holding a smartphone and using a language learning app.
Image Tags | hand(s), smartphone

Facebook-App soll das Gedankenlesen lernen

(Facebook app is supposed to learn mindreading)

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Newspaper | Welt
Date | 20.3.2017
Language | German
Country | Germany
Topic Tags | brain, Facebook, privacy, translation
Summary | Facebook is working on new technology to enable mind reading. This would enable users to type just by thinking and moreover possibly type in a foreign language they don't even speak. All this would be possible if we had sensors that could read brain waves and interpret them correctly. The developers at Facebook emphasize that only those thoughts would be read which are willingly shared by the user.
Image Description | Thinkstock image of two cyborgs.
Image Tags | female(s), male(s)

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