138. AI-Voiced Audiobooks, Protein Created Out of Thin Air, Supersonic Shock Absorbing Gel

Notes: <p><a href='https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/04/apple-artificial-intelligence-ai-audiobooks'>Death of the narrator? Apple unveils suite of AI-voiced audiobooks</a> | The Guardian (01:14)</p> <ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Apple has quietly launched a catalog of books narrated by artificial intelligence in a move that may mark the beginning of the end for human narrators.</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">The audiobook market has exploded in recent year<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Sales last year jumped 25%, bringing in more than $1.5bn</li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Insiders believe the global market could be worth more than $35bn by 2030.</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">In recent months, Apple approached independent publishers as potential partners, but not all agreed to participate.<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Publishers involved in the project were required to sign non-disclosure agreements</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">This comes directly from Apple’s <a href='https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks'>site</a> on digital narration:<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">“Apple Books digital narration brings together advanced speech synthesis technology with important work by teams of linguists, quality control specialists, and audio engineers to produce high-quality audiobooks from an ebook file.”</li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">More information that is of interest on their site:<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">Distribution solely via Apple Books and to public/academic libraries </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Publisher/author retains audiobook rights, and there are no restrictions on producing and distributing other versions of the audiobook </li> </ul> </li> <li style="font-weight:400;">Some don’t see the point of AI narration, and that audiobooks are not all about rapidly producing the content, take Carly Watters statement for instance:<ul><li style="font-weight:400;">“Companies see the audiobooks market a