IVisionGate, Adelide, Adelaide (2026)

29/08/2022

Instagram tightens default content settings for teens under 16 years old

New teenage users will default to a newsfeed that shows less sensitive content

Instagram announced the platform is rolling out a feature that defaults accounts for new users under 16 years old to “Less,” the most restrictive setting for Sensitive Content Control. Teenagers already on Instagram will get push notifications “encouraging” them to opt-in to the heavier filtering on what the algorithm shows them across Search, Explore, Hashtag Pages, Reels, Feed Recommendations, and Suggested Accounts.

The “Standard” setting in Instagram only lets users see some content deemed sensitive, while the “Less” option tightens the restrictions even further, and the “More” option allows users to see more sensitive content or accounts than the default settings. While users over 18 years old typically have access to “Standard,” “Less,” and “More,” teenagers currently only have access to “Standard” and “Less.”

In June, Instagram first introduced its “Less” option. A week later, it began rolling out a feature in the US and other countries to suggest that teenage users look at other content if they spend too much time on one particular topic and excludes topics tied to appearance comparison.

Instagram is also testing prompts for teens that suggest limiting who can interact with their content. The test will ask them to review privacy and security settings related to who can re-share their content, who can message them, the type of content they can see, and time management.

Teenage users will be encouraged to review who can interact with their content

The “Sensitive Content Control” feature launched on Instagram in July 2021. The filter was supposed to keep users from seeing potentially harmful and “inappropriate” material suggested to them on the Explore page. As Meta / Instagram ramps up suggested content in response to the rise of TikTok, the tuning applied to the algorithm has become more impactful.

The feature was met with backlash from many people in the art world, s*x workers, tattoo artists, and the cannabis industry since they could be excluded from the feed of suggestions if their accounts or content were flagged. In the Help Center, Instagram describes what it sees as sensitive content, including posts with depictions of violence or s*xually explicit or suggestive, promoting regulated products and substances, etc.

Instagram has recently introduced other features on Instagram that cater to providing a secure experience. In March, parental controls arrived on the platform that allows parents and guardians to monitor what their child does on Instagram, including how much time they spend on the app.

Instagram announced the platform is rolling out a feature that defaults accounts for new users under 16 years old to “Less,” the most restrictive setting for Sensitive Content Control. Teenagers already on Instagram will get push notifications “encouraging” them to opt-in to the heavier filt...

29/08/2022

After 18 years, Meta’s finally building Facebook a customer service division

Meta is trying to make it easier for its users to get support when their accounts or posts are removed, according to a report. The report quotes Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance, who says that the company is “spending a bunch of time on” customer service. Since Facebook’s inception, people haven’t really had any recourse or way to talk to the company about moderation decisions.

At this stage, it doesn’t seem clear what Meta’s customer service division will actually do. Last year, the company piloted a live chat support program that gave some English-speaking users a way to actually talk to a human at Meta if they needed help using a new feature or got locked out of their accounts. At the time, the company said it was “the first time Facebook has offered live help for people locked out of their accounts.”

Providing support for all of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Horizon VR, and other properties, though, would be a massive undertaking for the company. Meta’s focus on fixing its customer support experience is in part due to feedback from its Oversight Board. Last year, the “independent” body set up to monitor and overturn Meta’s decisions (independent is in quotes because it’s funded by the company) reported that it received almost a million user appeals about Meta’s content moderation.

As Meta’s looking to help the users who accidentally find themselves on the wrong side of its automated moderation tools, it’s still working to remove the people who are purposefully evading bans. According to a tweet from Meta’s counterterrorism policy lead, Dina Hussein, the company recently took down around 500 accounts, pages, groups, and events associated with the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group that was banned from the platform in 2018.

https://twitter.com/DinaHussein/status/1562832759214592000

Meta is trying to make it easier for its users to get support when their accounts or posts are removed, according to a report. The report quotes Brent Harris, Meta’s vice president of governance, who says that the company is “spending a bunch of time on” customer service. Since Facebook’s in...

29/08/2022

Snapchat rolls out its dual camera feature

Snapchat is adding a new feature to its main camera, allowing users to capture photos and videos using the front- and back-facing cameras on their phones at the same time.

The dual camera feature was initially announced back in April as part of Snapchat’s to-be-released director mode, which will give users access to a wider range of creative tools. The dual camera feature is coming directly to Snapchat just as BeReal — the nostalgia-tinged photo-sharing app using both cameras — is breaking into the mainstream.

Part of BeReal’s appeal is in the relatively minimal set of features and the mundanity of what users see when they open the app. It only supports images, there’s just one layout for pictures, and it doesn’t include any editing tools. Snapchat’s version is more robust than what BeReal offers. For one, users can pick from several different layout options, including windows stacked vertically, side by side, picture in picture (the most similar to BeReal), and cutout. Snap also says users will be able to add lenses, stickers, and music to their content captured with the dual camera setting.

A dual camera is available on iOS starting today, with Android following in the coming months.

Other platforms have jumped in to try to take advantage of the appeal of BeReal. Last week, leakers noticed that Instagram was testing something called IG Candid, which apparently prompts users to snap a picture using both cameras at a specific time of day, just like BeReal. Meta said it was an internal test only.

Snapchat is adding a new feature to its main camera, allowing users to capture photos and videos using the front- and back-facing cameras on their phones at the same time. The dual camera feature was initially announced back in April as part of Snapchat’s to-be-released director mode, which will g...

29/08/2022

“IG Candid” feature asks for a photo at a specific time of day; similar to BeReal

Meta has confirmed that it’s internally prototyping a new Instagram feature that’s suspiciously similar to BeReal, the social media app that’s recently exploded in popularity. The so-called “IG Candid” feature discovered by leaker Alessandro Paluzzi mirrors BeReal by prompting the user to share an authentic photo at a random time each day.

Paluzzi posted a screenshot with Instagram’s description of how the feature could work. “Add other’s IG Candid to your story tray. And every day at a different time, get a notification to capture and share a Photo in 2 Minutes,” the screenshot reads.

https://twitter.com/alex193a/status/1561803897118810121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1561803897118810121%7Ctwgr%5Ebfcd118319f808dec940bf420e05ea64a62f2b4d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2022%2F8%2F23%2F23317802%2Finstagram-ig-candid-prototype-bereal-murder-clone

For the uninitiated, that’s almost exactly how the BeReal experience is meant to work. The service, which rose to prominence last month and is currently the No. 1 free app in the iOS App Store, sends a notification to its users at a random time of day, giving them two minutes to take both a rear-facing photo and a selfie simultaneously. It’s a format that’s supposed to encourage the sharing of authentic images from people’s days, rather than the kinds of carefully curated content that Instagram is known for.

Meta confirmed that it’s testing the IG Candid feature in a statement. “This feature is an internal prototype, and not testing externally,” said Meta spokesperson Christine Pai. That suggests there’s no definite timeline for when the feature might become available publicly if it is even released at all.

But given how Meta and other social media giants have responded to other popular apps over the years, it seems safe to assume that Instagram will eventually roll out a response to BeReal if its popularity continues. After all, when Snapchat’s Stories feature became popular, Instagram rolled out a Stories feature of its own, and Reels is an obvious response to the popularity of TikTok.

Meta is far from the only tech giant to have rolled out a murder clone or two. YouTube Shorts is another transparent attempt to cash in on the popularity of vertically shot short-form videos, and Twitter was quick to roll out Spaces in response to the popularity of Clubhouse.

This isn’t even the first time Meta has been accused of copying BeReal. Last month, around the time BeReal was rocketing in popularity, it widely rolled out a new feature called Dual which allows you to take a photo or video from both your phone’s front and rear camera simultaneously. People were quick to point out the BeReal similarities, although Dual differs by allowing you to capture the content whenever you want, rather than having to wait for daily notification. But according to one former Instagram product designer, the Dual feature had actually been in development for several years, and its release around the time of BeReal’s explosion in popularity was simply “convenient.”

Meta has confirmed that it’s internally prototyping a new Instagram feature that’s suspiciously similar to BeReal, the social media app that’s recently exploded in popularity. The so-called “IG Candid” feature discovered by leaker Alessandro Paluzzi mirrors BeReal by prompting the user to ...

29/08/2022

Amazon will shut down Amazon Care on December 31st

Amazon plans to shut down Amazon Care, the virtual health service it first launched in 2019, by the end of the year. The company announced the decision to Amazon Care employees on Wednesday.

“Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting and wasn’t going to work long-term,” Amazon senior vice president of health Neil Lindsay in an email to staff. We’ve obtained the full memo and have included it at the end of this story.

Amazon Care started as a service for Amazon employees based in Seattle. It paired virtual health care services with the option for an in-home visit from a nurse. The company expanded the program nationwide just this past February, offering it to companies in all 50 states who wanted to provide the service to their employees. Amazon was still expanding the service as recently as this month when a webpage showed that it was adding mental health care through a partnership with mental health company Ginger.

The move to shut down an in-house health service comes on the heels of Amazon’s planned acquisition of the subscription-based primary care company One Medical. Amazon is also reportedly interested in buying Signify Health, a company that makes technology for at-home health care.

Like most technology companies, Amazon has ambitions to expand into the lucrative healthcare market. It purchased prescription delivery company PillPack in 2018 and has its own pharmacy.

But this isn’t the first time Amazon has abruptly shuttered a health venture — Haven, a project it launched with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase to disrupt the healthcare industry, collapsed in 2021. Its in-house pharmacy business hasn’t been a major driver toward Prime subscriptions.

Amazon Care operations will end on December 31st.

Here’s the full memo from Neil Lindsay:

Health Services team,

We are working on an important, missionary opportunity. Our vision is to make it easier for people to access the health care products and services they need to get and stay healthy. We know accomplishing this won’t be easy or fast, but we believe it matters.

One of the ways we’ve worked towards this vision for the past several years has been with our urgent and primary care service offering, Amazon Care. During that time, we’ve gathered and listened to extensive feedback from our enterprise customers and their employees and evolved the service to continuously improve the experience for customers. However, despite these efforts, we’ve determined that Amazon Care isn’t the right long-term solution for our enterprise customers, and have decided that we will no longer offer Amazon Care after December 31, 2022.

This decision wasn’t made lightly and only became clear after many months of careful consideration. Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting and wasn’t going to work long-term.

Our work building Amazon Care has deepened our understanding of what’s needed long-term to deliver meaningful health care solutions for enterprise and individual customers. You’ve heard me say it before, but I believe the healthcare space is ripe for reinvention, and our efforts to help improve the healthcare experience can have an immensely positive impact on our quality of life and health outcomes. However, none of these reasons make this decision any easier for the teams that have helped to build Amazon Care, or for the customers our Care team serves.

Our priority right now is to support you, regardless of the path you take. Many Care employees will have an opportunity to join other parts of the Health Services organization or other teams at Amazon – which we’ll be discussing with many of you shortly – and we’ll also support employees looking for roles outside of the company.

To the Amazon Care and Care Medical teams, thank you for all of your hard work over these last several years. You should be very proud of what this team has been able to accomplish in a short period of time. I am also thankful to our members and business customers for entrusting us with their care; this is not a responsibility we take lightly. As we take our learnings from Amazon Care, we will continue to invent, learn from our customers and industry partners, and hold ourselves to the highest standards as we further help reimagine the future of health care.

Sincerely,

Neil

Amazon plans to shut down Amazon Care, the virtual health service it first launched in 2019, by the end of the year. The company announced the decision to Amazon Care employees on Wednesday. “Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering...

29/08/2022

Google Meet is copying Zoom’s push-to-talk feature

As Google carries out the needlessly complex process of combining both the Meet and Duo apps, now it’s throwing a feature copied from Zoom in the mix. In an update on the Google Workspace blog, the company announced that Google Meet will soon give you the ability to unmute yourself by holding down the spacebar and to mute yourself again by releasing it.

If you frequently use Zoom, this feature might sound a lot like its push-to-talk feature — and that’s because it’s essentially the same thing. Zoom obviously didn’t revolutionize this feature (we have walkie-talkies to thank for that), but it conveniently makes it available during video conferences, which comes in handy whenever you want to chime in during a meeting but don’t want to stay unmuted for long. Cisco’s Webex has a similar capability, and while Microsoft Teams widely launched a Walkie-Talkie feature earlier this year, it’s not something you can use during video conferences.

Google says it'll start rolling out its own version of the shortcut to all Workspace users on September 9th, but it could take up to 15 days for you to see it. Once it arrives, it won’t be turned on by default, so you’ll have to enable it from Google Meet’s settings.

Confusingly, Google’s efforts to merge Duo and Meet have left us with the new Meet app (the one that combines both Duo and Meet), the old Meet (Original) app, and a Duo shortcut that leads to Meet. It’s truly something only Google could think up. It’s still not exactly clear whether it’s coming to the Meet (Original) app, as Google will eventually discontinue it.

As Google carries out the needlessly complex process of combining both the Meet and Duo apps, now it’s throwing a feature copied from Zoom in the mix. In an update on the Google Workspace blog, the company announced that Google Meet will soon give you the ability to unmute yourself by holding down...

29/08/2022

Netflix is testing a social experience within its games

Netflix is testing Gamertag-style handles that users can create and publicly display when playing its selection of mobile games. This should let members identify and invite other users to play games based on their handles, as well as see where they rank on leaderboards.

Netflix gives the option to create and manage the game handle associated with the particular Netflix profile in all games. Just like creating your Gamertag (or public-facing username on any other gaming platform), your game handle must be unique, which Netflix will automatically check once you input the name of your choice.

“Your game handle is a unique public name for playing games on Netflix,” the in-app text reads when first creating your handle. “Your profile icon and name won’t be visible to others. You can change your game handle at any time.”

After tapping into the “Learn More” menu, Netflix explains that you can use game handles when inviting and playing with other members. It will also “show you where you are on leaderboards,” and indicates that you’ll be able to check when certain users are online or offline, creating a sort of social experience within its games.

However, options to invite friends or view leaderboards, may not be available yet.

Netflix started rolling out game handles in select titles last month, including Into the Breach, Bowling Ballers, Heads Up!, and Mahjong Solitaire. It’s not clear if and when Netflix plans on rolling out game handles to more of its games.

Netflix first launched games last November, and they haven’t exactly taken off. A recent report from CNBC cites data from app tracking group Apptopia, which reveals that a measly one percent of Netflix subscribers, or about 1.7 million users, interact with Netflix’s games on a daily basis.

Netflix aims to include a total of 50 games in its library by the end of 2022, and just added Heads Up!, a game popularized by the Ellen Degeneres show. In addition to a new ad-supported tier and a potential crackdown on password sharing, Netflix’s games could assume an even greater role as the company scrambles to get its wavering subscriber count back on an upward trend.

Netflix is testing Gamertag-style handles that users can create and publicly display when playing its selection of mobile games. This should let members identify and invite other users to play games based on their handles, as well as see where they rank on leaderboards. Netflix gives the option to c...

29/08/2022

Netflix’s ad-supported tier could cost between $7 and $9 per month

Netflix’s forthcoming ad-supported tier may cost between $7 and $9 per month, depending on which plan you currently pay for, which could be a significant saving; the company currently offers plans at $9.99, $15.49, and $19.99 per month.

After the company reported that it lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, co-CEO Reed Hastings indicated in April the company was ready to consider a cheaper offering supported by advertising, despite years of spurning the idea of ads. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos confirmed the ad tier was in the works in June, and Netflix announced Microsoft as the technological partner helping to deliver ads in July.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the ad-supported tier will have some downgrades from the no ads plans; executives have said that some content will be missing from the ad tier at launch, while code spotted in its mobile app indicates Netflix may not let users on the ad-supported tier download shows for offline viewing.

The company aims to sell approximately four minutes of ads per hour and wants to show ads ahead of and in the middle of content. Although, it doesn’t plan to include ads with its kids' content or original movies. Netflix is targeting to launch the ad-supported plan in “half a dozen markets” in the final quarter of this year. The company plans to launch the tier more broadly in early 2023.

However, Netflix spokesperson Kumiko Hidaka said that these reports are “all just speculation at this point.” She said that the company is “still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower priced, ad-supported tier and no decisions have been made.”

The new ad plan arrives at a turbulent time. After April’s shocking drop in subscribers, Netflix reported another subscriber drop three months later. Netflix also raised its prices across all of its plans in the US in January — its third price hike in recent years —and is testing ways to turn password-sharing viewers into customers who pay for extra streams. And the company is facing competition from other streaming services like Disney Plus, whose own ad-supported plan is set to launch in December, and HBO Max, which launched a $10 ad-supported plan in June 2021 that comes without downloads or 4K streaming.

Netflix’s forthcoming ad-supported tier may cost between $7 and $9 per month, depending on which plan you currently pay for, which could be a significant saving; the company currently offers plans at $9.99, $15.49, and $19.99 per month. After the company reported that it lost subscribers for the f...

27/08/2022

Take a look at robots assembling and testing Samsung’s newest foldable

A Galaxy Fold 4 rolls up to the folding test station.

Samsung made big strides with last year’s foldable in terms of durability — the Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 were the first devices in the series to offer serious water resistance and an IPX8 rating. This year’s phones aren’t a whole lot tougher, but the Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 are still something of an engineering marvel. We got a glimpse at the foldable assembly line last year, and as the newest Flip and Fold goes on sale today, Samsung is giving us another peek at how the sausage is made. And it’s pretty flippin’ cool.

The video — spotted by XDA Developers — mostly features the Fold 4, starting from the moment its back cover is pressed into place and ending with a look at the folding phone dunk tank. Along the way, various functions are tested, like its response to the S Pen and wireless connectivity. It gets a camera autofocus test by bringing a grid of white lights into focus, and another robot presses its side keys repeatedly.

It’s neat to get a peek behind the curtain, but it’s hard to say that it inspires tons of confidence in the Z Fold or Z Flip’s long-term durability. It’s one thing to roll off the assembly line with a passing grade, but it’s another thing entirely to stand up to multiple years of daily use in the hands of a real, live human. If you’re picking up a Z Flip 4 or Z Fold 4 today, maybe it’s a good idea to add that Samsung Care Plus plan to your cart, too.

A Galaxy Fold 4 rolls up to the folding test station. Samsung made big strides with last year’s foldable in terms of durability — the Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 were the first devices in the series to offer serious water resistance and an IPX8 rating. This year’s phones aren’t a whole lot … Tak...

27/08/2022

Google brought back Duo because its Meet transition is too confusing

The Duo icon launches Google Meet (2022) but not Google Meet (original)

Google’s plan to consolidate its communication services into Meet was supposed to (finally) make things simpler and more straightforward. It was meant to bring about some sense and order for a company that has always overthought this stuff and made it confusing — to a truly impressive degree. Earlier this month, the company rebranded its Duo video chat app as Meet and brought over Meet’s features. That left the original, to-be-phased-out Meet app with a new “Meet (Original)” name. It also made for an all-time great headline.

But apparently, not all customers have been happy with Duo’s sudden identity change. With the latest update to the Meet app for Android, Google has brought back the original Duo icon and name as a separate shortcut that appears in the app launcher. Tapping on Duo opens Google Meet. So you’ve now got two ways of accessing the same application.

Google told 9to5Google and Droid Life that it made this move intentionally so that users would be able to launch Meet by searching for “Duo,” just like they had done before it was rebranded. But the fact that this was even necessary again points to a company that has lost the thread on strategy around these services.

The Duo shortcut might be helpful to ease the transition, but it also opens the door to more confusion — especially when Google itself is telling everyone to “look for the Meet name and icon as your one app for video calling and meetings.” That’s not exactly the case anymore, now is it? We’re back to two icons and two names for the same app. And if you open up the multitasking view after launching Meet via the Duo shortcut, you’ll see Duo’s icon up top like so:

Google Meet with a Google Duo icon above it. Makes complete, total sense.

Someday we’ll end up with just Messages, Google Chat, and Google Meet after all of this — sadly, without the clean, simple FaceTime alternative that Duo once was — but the road there is proving quite convoluted.

Google’s plan to consolidate its communication services into Meet was supposed to (finally) make things simpler and more straightforward. It was meant to bring about some sense and order for a company that has always overthought this stuff and made it confusing — to a truly impressive degree. Ea...

27/08/2022

The best AI-powered apps to transcribe your audio

Whenever a popular online app announces a change to its fees, or in the services it provides for those fees, you’re going to get a reaction from its subscribers — especially the long-term ones. The latest app to cause this type of dismay is Otter, a recording and transcription service that recently announced downgrades of the services it provides on two of its plans and raised the price on a monthly plan.

For free users, it means that they will no longer have access to all their past transcriptions — only the last 25. For paying customers who are on Otter’s Pro plan, the change will be nearly as (or more) drastic: they will be downgraded from a monthly allowance of 6,000 minutes of transcribed audio to 1,200 minutes and from a maximum of four hours of audio per conversation to 90 minutes.

What this means is that, for example, a reporter who uses Otter to track interviews and was able to do up to 100 one-hour interviews a month is now limited to 20. Or somebody who uses Otter to record doctor visits or conversations with older relatives will have to remember to start a new recording after 90 minutes is up.

While it is raising its monthly fee from $12.99 to $16.99, its annual fee of $99.96 is not changing. And if you subscribe to the annual Pro plan by September 26th (or are already a subscriber), then the next time you automatically upgrade, you will retain the older features for one more year.

And after that? Well, if you decide to stay with Otter, you will either put up with the decreased feature set or pay for Otter’s Business plan ($30 a month or $240 annually), which will still have the 6,000-minute per month / four-hour per conversation allowance, along with other features. Otherwise, you can find an alternative service to use. But before we describe some of the alternatives out there, a few notes.

First, there are actually two types of transcription services: one that uses an AI engine and the other that uses human transcribers. While using AI to interpret and transcribe audio has improved vastly over the past few years, it is still less accurate — but considerably less expensive — than transcription by people. For this article, there are services that use AI transcription, although some of them offer both.

The quality of transcription supplied by these apps can vary widely — not only depending on the AI engine the app is using but also on your audio file. If there are a lot of voices talking at once, if there is a lot of background noise, if your speakers have accents unfamiliar to the AI — those factors can all serve to degrade the accuracy of the transcription. So a good idea is to try out a transcription service with a typical file to see how well it performs.

And take a close look at which app could be most cost-effective for you. If you only need to upload an occasional file, it could be best to go with either a free version or one of the pay-as-you-go services. If you do regular uploads, then a monthly or annual subscription may work better for you.

Finally, if you are an Otter subscriber and transcriptions are an important part of your personal, creative, or professional life, it’s worth it to figure out whether one of these works better for you or you should just stick with Otter, at least for now.

TEMI:

Temi has a straightforward, easy-to-understand interface.

Temi is a basic transcription service that offers such features as the ability to review and edit your transcriptions, slow down the replay, and export your files into text (Microsoft Word, PDF) or closed caption (SRT, VTT) files. Its mobile apps for Android and iOS allow you to record audio; you can then choose to transcribe it for a straightforward 25 cents per audio minute or upload your own recordings for the same price. New users get the first 45 minutes free. (It is also folded into Rev, a service that offers human-operated transcriptions and other services.)

MEETGEEK:

Like Otter, MeetGeek offers a free limited version.

MeetGeek calls itself “an AI meeting assistant.” In other words, its concentration is on transcribing meetings (although it can be used for other audio). It has a free version that lets you create transcripts from audio and video sources — you can record five hours of audio a month and retain one month’s worth. For $19 / month or $180 / year, a Pro version gives you 20 hours of audio a month and three months of transcript retention. There are also Business and Enterprise versions. New users get a 14-day trial of the Business plan, which costs $39 a month, or $372 a year, and gets you 40 hours of audio a month and six months of recording retention.

TRINT:

Trint offers both transcription and translation services.

Trint’s website makes it obvious that it’s pushing its AI transcription services to creative users who will take the transcript material and “effortlessly shape transcripts into high-impact content for blogs, social media, podcasts, and more.” According to Trint, it can transcribe in 32 different languages and translate finished transcriptions into 54 languages. The Starter plan ($60 / month or $576 / year) lets you transcribe up to seven files per month, capture audio from Zoom and its iPhone app (it doesn’t have an Android app), edit and share transcripts, and translate text to 54 languages. The Advanced plan ($70 / month or $720 / year) adds unlimited transcription and lets up to 15 users edit simultaneously. A seven-day free trial lets you sample the Advanced plan.

SONIX:

Sonix uses a pay-as-you-go plan.

Sonix offers automated translations in 35 languages. It includes the usual ability to edit its transcripts, a word-by-word timestamp, and the ability to upload transcripts from other programs and stitch them to new ones. You can export your transcripts in DOCX, TXT, and PDF and export subtitles in SRT and VTT formats. It starts with a pay-as-you-go Standard plan that costs $10 an audio hour (prorated to the nearest minute), and you get 10GB of file storage for 90 days. There is also a Premium subscription plan ($5 per audio hour plus $22 / month or $198 / year) that adds a number of features and 50GB of storage. New users get 30 free minutes of transcription.

SCRIBIE:

Scribie concentrates on manual transcriptions, but it also offers a simple AI transcribing service.

Scribie mostly offers manually transcribed services, but it does have simple AI-powered transcription as well for 10 cents a word with a minimum of $1 per file. For that, you get an online editor, speaker tracking, and the ability to download it as a Word document or an SRT / VTT subtitle file.

ALICE:

Alice sends your recordings and transcriptions to your email address.

While MeetGeek concentrates on meeting transcriptions, Alice touts itself as a transcription service for journalists. The other services store your transcripts (some with time limits, some without) and let you edit them online, but Alice doesn’t; instead, it sends the audio file and the transcript to your email address and adds it to your Google Drive. Alice is pay-as-you-go: $9.99 for one or two hours of audio, $4.99 an hour for 20 hours, or $2.99 an hour for 100 hours. You get the first 60 minutes free and can use it with an iOS app or the web; there is no Android app.

Whenever a popular online app announces a change to its fees, or in the services it provides for those fees, you’re going to get a reaction from its subscribers — especially the long-term ones. The latest app to cause this type of dismay is Otter, a recording and transcription service that recen...

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