Windows 10 to get Cortana voice control / search

Took their time. I hope it improves on OS dictation. Double tapping Fn on a Mac is a great feature I've been surprised MS haven't been eager to replicate.

http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-cortana-gets-refined-adds-hey-cortana-feature

Vodafone Germany starts rolling out SIM card based encryption

The interesting bits:

A report from The Hacker News has detailed Vodafone's plans for securing customers' data communication using a SIM card based solution which previously was possible using separate smart cards or tokens. The company has developed this solution in collaboration with its security partner Giesecke & Devrient (G&D).

The solution which will utilize a PIN and a digital signature will be used to encrypt the data at sender's end and decrypt at the receiver's ends using the SIM. Data such as emails, documents, VPN connections and other forms of data communication will be secured using it. Currently, the Secure SIM solution uses S/MIME encryption but the company expects to use PGP in the future as the system becomes mature.

Vodafone expects to launch similar encryption solution for voice calls using a Secure Call app, which the company hopes to launch on all major smartphone platforms such as Android, iOS and Windows Phone.

http://www.neowin.net/news/vodafone-germany-starts-rolling-out-sim-card-based-encryption

Rumor: Microsoft working on "Cortana" personal assistant

I hope so. Windows 8 voice control is shocking.

http://www.neowin.net/news/rumor-microsoft-working-on-cortana-personal-assistant

Xbox One delivers premium voice quality via hardware improvements and Skype’s audio codec

Thanks to integration with Skype’s audio codec, which has a proven track record of high-quality voice through billions of hours of use within Skype, as well as dedicated audio processing (for Xbox One conversations via Skype and multiplayer party chats), Xbox One offers higher quality voice chat with the Xbox One Chat Headset compared to Xbox 360—whether you’re chatting in-game or through party chat with Skype on Xbox One.

But the improvements don’t stop there. The Xbox One Wireless Controller’s new expansion port dramatically expands the data transfer rate between the controller and console. Combined with Skype’s audio codec, this enables crystal-clear digital audio with the Xbox One Chat Headset, both capturing and rendering speech at 24 KHz PCM, which is triple the rendering sample rate and a 50 percent capture rate improvement over Xbox 360 headsets. And, as we shared before, the Xbox One Chat Headset comes with every Xbox One console.

http://majornelson.com/2013/08/29/xbox-one-delivers-premium-voice-quality-via-hardware-improvements-and-skypes-audio-codec/

VONGA is dead – long live FVA? – Openreach

An interesting read over at the CTO of Timco's blog:

http://www.trefor.net/2010/07/13/vonga-is-dead-long-live-fva-openreach/

It is a 2010 article so be warned to keep that in mind.