Latest news with #Podcastle
Daily Record
23-05-2025
- General
- Daily Record
American Millennials find Scottish accents the most trustworthy in the world
American Millennials find Scottish accents the most trustworthy in the world Our US cousins were polled on which brouges put them at ease. 12 states voted the Scottish accent the most trustworthy (Image: George Clerk via Getty Images ) We Scots are famed for having a gorgeous range of accents, but a new study has revealed that our voices are also see as trustworthy to certain people. Many of our American cousins across the Atlantic associated a good, Scottish brogue with honesty and dependability. This won't come as a huge surprise to many of us, given that those in the US are constantly swooning over a Scots accent, and our voices have even been deemed the UK's sexiest. But the study, carried out by Podcastle, dug a little deeper and found that our lilt is especially warming to US Millennials. That generation, who are mostly now in their 30s, found the Scottish accent to be the most trustworthy in the world. This comes off the back of a survey in 2023, which saw the Scottish accent voted by Americans as the most charming in the world, surpassing all other competing accents in Britain. In this previous poll it was also named the second most beautiful accent, as well as the second most attractive accent in the world. Scottish was also the second most calming and the second most funny accent. The Podcastle poll took in the opinions of 1,000 Americans, and found that our Stateside cousins were more inclined to trust people on this side of the Atlantic. Article continues below And there was a distinct lack of trust for people with a New York accent. Less than one in 10 found in trustworthy, and a Southern American lilt was significantly preferred to their Big Apple compatriots. Americans found UK accents - especially RP and Scottish brogues - to be the most trustworthy (Image: Podcastle ) A total of 12 US states voted the Scottish accent the most trustworthy, but it wasn't the overall winner as the Received Pronunciation (RP) accent was voted the most trustworthy on the whole. The stereotypical well-articulated, south of England brogue was seen as comforting and honest by a whopping 26 states in the poll. The RP accent, which has also been known as 'The Queen's English' or 'BBC English' - a term in the Cambridge Dictionary - was the most appealing and calming for 40 per cent of Americans. The most attractive accent overall was the British RP accent, known as 'the Queen's English' (Image: Samir Hussein/WireImage ) It was also revealed that those sporting this style of pronunciation are the most desired for podcasts, audiobooks, YouTube, and TikTok. The Southern American accent came in second place, with 31 per cent of Americans saying they found it trustworthy and 70 per cent associating it with calmness. However, it still trailed the British RP accent in every major trust and preference category. The British RP accent wasn't just seen as trustworthy, but also proved to be a hit in the romance department. Nearly 40 per cent of Baby Boomers in the US said they find British accents the most romantic, preferring them over Latin American or Australian tones. And while Millennials were more inclined to trust a Scot, Gen-Z leant towards a more neutral American tone. Arto Yeritsyan, Podcastle's CEO explained how this accent can influence how Americans feel about the speaker. Benedict Cumberbatch's accent is a textbook example of British RP (Image:) The CEO said: 'Whether it's David Attenborough, Emma Thompson, or Benedict Cumberbatch, it's clear that the British RP accent signals intelligence, warmth, and trustworthiness to American ears." Article continues below The expert highlighted the importance of accents in media, saying: "This isn't just about how we speak – it's about how we're perceived. "For content creators, choosing the right voice can be just as important as what's being said.'
New York Post
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
New York accents are hated by a majority of Americans — and a shocking number of New Yorkers, too: survey
New York's distinct accent — the one that brought us Joe Pesci's defensive 'Funny how?' in 'Goodfellas' and Fran Drescher's thick 'Oh, Mr. Sheffield' from the sitcom 'The Nanny' — is rubbing a lot of Americans the wrong way. Nearly 60% of Americans say they find the accent annoying, according to a new survey by Podcastle, an AI voice platform. And it's not just outsiders who feel that way. Advertisement 6 Fuhgeddaboudit! Nearly 60% of Americans say the iconic New York accent — think Edith and Archie Bunker of 'All in the Family' fame, as played by Jean Stapleton (left) and Carroll O'Connor — is straight-up annoying, a new Podcastle survey says. CBS /Landov A surprising 45% of New Yorkers agree that their own accent is grating. 'How we speak and how others hear us can shape everything from trust to how we connect emotionally. This survey shows just how much accents matter, not just in daily conversations but in the kind of content people enjoy and even those they find attractive,' said Podcastle. Advertisement Only 10% of Americans say they trust someone with a New York accent. In contrast, folks with a Southern drawl were deemed 256% more trustworthy and 232% more appealing than New Yorkers, the survey found. 6 How we speak, and how New Yorkers like 'The Nanny' star Fran Drescher (above right, with Roseanne Barr) speak, shapes trust and connection — even attraction, Podcastle said. 6 Even 45% of New Yorkers admit their accent is nails-on-a-chalkboard, per Podcastle. Podcastle Advertisement 6 Brooklyn-born Steve Buscemi (right, with director Tolga Karaçelik last month in NYC) might not be thrilled with this survey. Getty Images Michael Newman, a linguistics professor at Queens College, told Fox News that the classic NYC accent is fading — but it's not going away anytime soon. 'Some of the features that have been traditionally associated with New York City English are diminishing,' he said. 'What's being lost is the final 'R.' You get in the 'caw' and you go to the 'baw.' It's now 'car' and 'bar.'' Meanwhile, a Guide2Fluency study previously found New Yorkers' accents aren't just annoying to people — they're baffling to artificial intelligence systems, too. Advertisement According to the study, AI assistants like Siri and Alexa struggled to understand New Yorkers' 'caw' and 'baw,' with AI algorithms ranking the New York accent the second hardest to comprehend. 6 Just one in 10 Americans trust someone with a New York accent — think Pete Davidson (above left, with Jon Stewart). Meanwhile, Southerners came off as 256% more trustworthy and 232% more charming, the survey found. Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post 6 Cardi B also offers as a thick-as-the-South-Bronx accent. Getty Images Still, some say the sound of New York is the sound of home. 'None of us as New Yorkers really want to sound like we are from somewhere else,' Newman admitted.
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Podcasting platform Podcastle launches a text-to-speech model with more than 450 AI voices
Podcast recording and editing platform Podcastle is now joining other companies in the AI-powered, text-to-speech race by releasing its own AI model called Asyncflow v1.0. An API for developers will also be available, allowing them to directly integrate the text-to-speech model in their apps. Thanks to the new model, the company is able to offer more than 450 AI voices that can narrate your text. The startup said that it developed the technology and model in such a way that its training and inference costs are low, giving it an advantage against competitors. With the move, Podcastle joins a number of startups, including ElevenLabs, Speechify, and WellSaid, that have developed technology and AI models to convert any kind of text into a voice clip narrated by AI. This technology spans use cases like marketing, advertisement, content creation, education, and corporate training. Podcastle's founder, Arto Yeritsyan, told TechCrunch that the company had always wanted to build a text-to-speech model, but the cost of training and data requirements for that were very high. "We wanted to build a robust text-to-speech model since our inception. However, the costs of development were very high. Thanks to recent large language model developments, we were able to reach a breakthrough last year to get to a place where we could build a high-quality voice model without needing a ton of data," Yeritsyan said. The company was also aided in its efforts by its $13.5 million Series A fundraise last year. Yeritsyan said that while Podcastle charges around $40 per 500 minutes of text-to-speech conversion, ElevenLabs charges $99 for the same. Podcastle's voice cloning feature is getting an upgrade, as well, to create a quicker process for training. Earlier, the training process involved reading roughly 70 different sentences. Now, it just needs a few seconds of recording from you to create a clone of your voice. The new process also used Podcastle's Magic Dust AI, which was released last year, to improve audio recording quality. In our testing, the voice created with the new process sounded a bit robotic, though it mimicked our tone. The company said that, over time, it will improve the feature. Plus, you can train different samples of your voice to get different results. Podcastle said that apart from costs, having tools for audio, video, podcasts, and AI-powered narration under one redesigned site will give it an edge over competitors. Yeritsyan said that while the majority of the users use Podcastle to work on audio content, video is catching up to it as well.
