Admin: Word verification requirement for comments

Due to an overly burdensome and increasing amount of spam comments, I have turned on word verification for all submitted comments. I hope that this has not inconvenienced anyone.

Kind Regards,

Keith

Audio Forensics: Signal Processing helps unravel JFK Shooting evidence

IEEE (The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) has started a public video section on its web site it calls ieee.tv.  I have been a member of IEEE since at least my graduate school days, as are many speech and forensic scientists, so if you are in either one or both of these fields and are not a member, I highly recommend that you check into it. (And in the spirit of full disclosure and in the hopes of avoiding investigation under who knows what new law is actually now or ever will be on the books about such things on the Internet - no, they didn't pay me to plug them as a professional organization!).

On to the subject of this post: ieee.tv has a fascinating video clip on the gunshot analysis performed by various experts on the recordings JFK assassination.

Hat Tip: Thanks Alex!

Human Auditory System: Foreign subtitles improve speech perception

Want to improve your ability to comprehend a second spoken language? One way is to watch foreign films and read the foreign language subtitles - not the English ones. Eurekalert reports on a recent study.

Human Auditory System: Newborn babies cry with mother's accent

MedGadget reports on a study by French and German scientists on accent that a newborn uses - conclusion: its mother's. It is well known that a person's hearing system begins functioning while still forming in the womb. I find it fascinating that it is also "training" the speech part of the system at the same time and that the interplay works so soon after birth.

Audio Forensics: Pro Tools Snow Leopard Pre-Release

I don't use Pro Tools myself, but many audio forensics professionals do, so here is a breaking news item...

From Hitsquad Musician's News:

Pro Tools Prerelease now available for Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Avid/Digidesign is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a prerelease version of Pro Tools software that provides expanded Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard compatibility to Pro Tools 8 users.