Watch what you say. Scientists in England have developed a computer that can not only read lips, but can tell the difference between languages.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia’s School of Computing Sciences developed the technology by statistically modeling the lip motions of 23 bilingual and trilingual speakers. The resulting system is able to identify the language spoken by an individual with “very high accuracy,” according to the university. Identifiable languages included English, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Polish, and Russian.

What gives you away? The movement of your articulators–when you wag your tongue, jaw, and lips, you are generating the measurable characteristics of visual speech, the recognition of which is known as lip reading. Computer vision has already been used in lip reading, or “feature extraction,” but this is the first time computers have been “taught” to recognize different languages, according to UEA

Microsoft is trying to make it easier to sway users of Windows XP onto the latest version of its operating system.

For some time now, the company has been quietly building a “Windows XP mode” that uses virtualization to allow Windows 7 to easily run applications designed for Windows XP. According to sources familiar with the product, the application compatibility mode is built on the Virtual PC technology that Microsoft acquired in 2003, when it scooped up the assets of Connectix.

By adding the compatibility mode, Microsoft is aiming to address one of the key shortcomings of Windows Vista: its compatibility issues with software designed for Windows XP and earlier versions of the operating system.

Brattleboro Reformer
Hollywood calls it “rent, rip and return” and contends it’s one of the biggest technological threats to the movie industry’s annual $20 billion DVD market - software that allows you to copy a film without paying for it.

On Friday, industry lawyers urged a federal judge to bar RealNetworks Inc. from selling software that allows consumers to copy their DVDs to computer hard drives, arguing that the Seattle-based company’s product is an illegal pirating tool.

RealNetworks’ lawyers countered later in the morning that its RealDVD product is equipped with piracy protections that limits a DVD owner to making a single copy and a legitimate way to back up copies of movies legally purchased.

The same federal judge who shut down the music-swapping site Napster in 2000 because of copyright violations is presiding over the three-day trial, which is expected to cut to the heart of the same technological upheaval roiling Hollywood that forever changed the face of the music business.

The studios fear that if RealNetworks is allowed to sell its RealDVD software, consumers will quickly lose interest in paying retail for movies on DVD that can be rented cheaply, copied and returned.

Their lawyers argue the software violates a federal law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes software and other tools that enable digital piracy illegal. They also contend shoppers will widely condone such illegal behavior if RealNetworks’ product is allowed on the market.