Meet Beeb baht ’at
The BBC’s answer to Amazon Alexa might sound more familiar to our ears, writes
During the war there was outrage and disbelief when a Northern voice was heard reading the BBC news headlines. It belonged to the actor, entertainer and Yorkshireman Wilfred Pickles, who had been at pains to tone down his West Riding dialect for the purpose.
As recently as the 1980s, the controller of Radio 4 was receiving complaints that the shipping forecast had been entrusted to a newsreader with a Scots lilt.
However, today it’s received pronunciation that is out of fashion, and the corporation’s latest development is proof if proof were needed. “Beeb” is a voice assistant similar to Amazon Alexa. You talk to it and it talks back to you.
The BBC announced last year that it was developing such a product, to a reaction of mostly raised eyebrows from commentators who warned that it would never be able to compete with the tech giants, whose smart speakers are now in an estimated one in five homes.
Now, the first iteration of Beeb has been released for public testing, with what its developers describe as a “warm and friendly” male Northern voice to differentiate it from the mid-Atlantic female tones of its rivals.
The idea is that you say to it, “Hey, Beeb – what’s the weather going to be like today?” and it proceeds to tell you in a synthetic Wilfred Pickles voice. It will also play ondemand radio, podcasts, news and jokes from BBC2’s QI and The Mash Report. This is a very limited set of functions, but the intention is that it will grow eventually into something more useful.
It will also play ondemand radio, podcasts, news and jokes from QI and The Mash Report.
LED clock fan stand:
Is it a clock, is it a fan? It’s both actually. The LED clock fan stand is the ideal combination of two functions in one. The safety-first soft blades spin to reveal a green and red analogue clock display, with quarter-hour numerical marking. The clock and fan sit upon a flexible neck which can be manipulated