Month: September 2023

The latest new feature being pushed out to the Spotify app means that you’ll get text alongside your audio.

Spotify isn’t slowing down when it comes to adding new features, and the latest upgrade announced by the streaming service is the automatic transcription of podcasts, so you can read along as you listen (or read along instead of listening).

“We’ll be rolling out transcripts to millions of episodes in the coming weeks, and we’ll innovate more on this feature in the future,” says Spotify. One of those future innovations will be the ability for media such as images to be added to transcriptions.

To find the transcription for a podcast, you simply scroll down on the Now Playing screen in the mobile app, then tap the ‘Read along’ card to see the full text. The transcription is automatically synced to the audio for you, as you go backwards and forwards.

It’s handy for those who are unable to listen to audio on their phone in the normal way, or for those times when you don’t have headphones but can’t turn up the phone speaker volume either – on the bus or in the library maybe. Hopefully a good percentage of the “ums” and “ahs” and “likes” will get cut out along the way.

Podcasts by the numbers

(Image credit: Spotify)

Spotify has timed the announcement to coincide with International Podcast Day, which we’re just learning actually exists and is apparently on September 30. Podcast chapter support is rolling out to more users as well for easier episode navigation, and Spotify is also revamping the show pages that give you information about a podcast.

From what Spotify says, its podcasts are proving a hit: it now has 100 million regular podcast listeners, a 10x increase since 2019, and the stats show that half a billion people have listened to at least one podcast on the platform in that time.

The Spotify podcast catalog now extends to 5 million shows, across 170 different countries, and Spotify is taking part in several podcast festivals and events across the globe in the coming months to push its numbers up even higher. 

This all sits alongside the growing range of Spotify audiobooks in the streaming service’s growing library of non-musical content, plus rumors about a new Spotify Supremium tier (a possible name for the long-awaited Spotify HiFi).  

AI smarts are also being used to translate podcasts into other languages while keeping the original voices, Spotify announced a few days ago, and it also recently announced a new Spotify Jam feature to make it easier for multiple people to collaborate on party playlists.

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Fake Red Cross blood donation emails look to deploy new trojans among the victims.

A brand new threat actor has been detected pretending to be the Red Cross in order to deploy trojans capable of stealing data and running malicious code.

Discovered by cybersecurity researchers from NSFOCUS Security Labs, the threat actor was named as AtlasCross, and is described as having a “high technical level and cautious attack attitude”. 

The infection vector is fairly old-school, if not outdated – by yet undiscovered means, the attackers would impersonate the non-profit to distribute a Word document with an embedded macro function. The document would seemingly be coming from the Red Cross and would discuss a blood donation.

Highly robust and mature process

Microsoft has disabled macros in files downloaded from the internet long ago, and users would need to take an extra few steps just to activate them.

Running the macro would trigger the download of a trojan called DangerAds. This is a loader malware, whose main goal is to detect the host environment and run a built-in shellcode used to load the final payload. When detecting the host environment, DangerAds will look for specific strings in user names and local domain names, and would only proceed if it finds them. 

“This design indicates that the attacker uses this attack process for intra-domain penetration after successfully intruding into the target network,” the researchers added. The final payload is called AtlasAgent, and its main function is to obtain host information, execute shellcode, download and execute.

So far, the researchers don’t know who the attackers are after. They know that the observed phishing activity is “part of the attacker’s targeted strike on specific targets and is its main means to achieve in-domain penetration.”

“At this current stage, AtlasCross has a relatively limited scope of activity, primarily focusing on targeted attacks against specific hosts within a network domain,” the report said. “However, the attack processes they employ are highly robust and mature.”

Via TheHackerNews

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Transform your Microsoft Teams call into an immersive, 3D experience, if you want.

Your workplace Microsoft Teams calls may never be the same again after the company announced its latest upgrade.

The new “immersive spaces” feature will look to take your Teams video conferencing to a whole new dimension – allowing users to “transform their meetings into a 3D experience,” the company says.

This means that instead of your typical blurred background, or even slightly more-exciting virtual backdrop, your Microsoft Teams call can now take place in any kind of 3D location or setting you choose (so long as Microsoft has built it).

Microsoft Teams immersive spaces

The news was revealed in an incredibly brief post on the company’s official Microsoft 365 roadmap. 

“With just one click, you can connect with your team in a pre-built immersive space right from the view menu in Teams meetings,” the company added, without revealing exactly what kinds of space would be available, or how users might go about adding or requesting new additions.

The post says that an initial preview of immersive space will be available in October 2023, so users won’t have too long to wait for a first glimpse of the new spaces. Microsoft says it is then expecting to issue a full release in January 2024, when the new feature will be available to Windows desktop users only to begin with.

Built using its new Microsoft Mesh development platform, immersive spaces were first hinted at by Microsoft back in May 2023.

Accessed either through a PC or a VR headset, the experiences will apparently be able to span across large virtual locations, giving the opportunity to move between different rooms or spaces in order to communicate with different teams or individuals, and spatial audio will mean that users can engage in individual chats or larger discussion with multiple conversations seamlessly.

The new platform could therefore be used to boost a single team’s communication, or be the backbone of a virtual conference or company event.

The launch is the latest in a series of additions and upgrades to Microsoft Teams in recent months as the company looks to keep the platform intuitive and engaging for users everywhere.

It also launched Microsoft Teams virtual avatars in May 2023, offering users the chance to substitute themselves for an animated alter-ego that offer more customization options, but also spices up the look and feel of Microsoft Teams calls.

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