Computer as Singing Coach from Planck's Constant

eternal love, Aztec style
Photo by: tejana

I'm starting a new category called 'Israel Under Siege'. Articles under this rubric will describe the activities undertaken by the Jewish state even while under daily assault from what we affectionately call the Palestinians. While Arab states, with no enemies and no one attacking them, with all their gazillion dollars of oil moneys, squander their wealth on worthless madrassas that only produce ignorant, savage, hateful human time-bombs, Israel invests her moneys on scientific and technological efforts that benefit all mankind.

As I pointed out in my article Israel Creates more in One Month than Islam in a Century, "Despite the second Lebanon war, the divestments, and the boycotts, Israel's economy enjoyed the largest growth in its GNP of any Western country at 8% for the last quarter of 2006....Israel's hi-tech industry exported $14.1 billion in goods last year, growing 20% from 2005."

Now today I read

Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends, 5 Jul 2008, Your computer as your singing coach
Israeli researchers have developed an electronic ear to coach vibrato technique. Until now, the quality of a vibrato -- the pulsating change of pitch in a singer's voice -- could only be judged by voice experts. Now, a Tel Aviv University research team 'has successfully managed to train a computer to rate vibrato quality, and has created an application based on biofeedback to help singers improve their technique.' Interestingly, this research could be used for other applications, such as improving automated help centers, where computers could be trained 'to recognize a range of different emotions, such as anger and nervousness.'

I have no doubt this research will also help those with speech defects or be useful in ferreting out terrorists or criminals by their voice patterns. Here's more on the automated help centers aspect:

AFTAU, 30 Jun 2008, To Sing Like Shakira, Press "One" Now
Other applications for this type of research, Amir says, could be in automated call centers, where callers communicate with computers. He hopes to be able to teach computers how to recognize a range of different emotions, such as anger and nervousness, so that a live receptionist can jump in when a caller becomes upset with the machine.

I expect some cries that this is only a bigoted "Jews are better than Muslims" rant. But they would be wrong; as I've written many times before, Arab Muslims come from the very same Semitic stock as Jews and if they simply spent their energy improvising heart valve devices instead of explosives, they would be welcome anywhere in the world, instead of being despised and evoking fear every time they board an airplane.

There was a time when Arabs were the Jews of the world and their contributions coruscated during the darkest of the Middle Ages. Since then the West has become more civilized and creative; however Muslims have descended into a technological black hole and have remained imprisoned there for the past one thousand years. It is time for Muslims to reject their violent religion and become part of civilized society. Otherwise, despite their billion and a half population, they face eventual extinction. The Aztecs disappeared, the Sumerian civilization is gone, the great and powerful Egyptians of the Exodus - poof.

Islam has grown to its present size because the rest of the world was oblivious to its spreading contagion. It survived because Western civilization viewed it as a religion like any other. Bin Laden made a mistake on 9/11, a huge mistake. Before then, we ignored the danger of Islam, but now the world is slowly waking up to the threat it poses to the survival of civilization. When fully awake, the infidel world will not tolerate Muslim intolerance. I wait only for the trigger.