Tickets for the Lakers-Celtics matchup are the seventh-most expensive on record.
March 2025
Tickets for Saturday’s Lakers-Celtics matchup are most expensive ever for Boston home game
Tickets for the Lakers-Celtics matchup are the seventh-most expensive on record.
I Tried Prime Video’s New AI Dubbing, and I Have Thoughts
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When you watch a piece of media produced in a language you don’t speak, you have a couple of options. You can, of course, turn on subtitles and follow along by reading. But in some cases, you can switch the audio track to whichever language you speak. This is called the “dub,” and it usually requires voice artists to record the lines in this new language—in a way that matches the original tone of the show or movie.
This requires time and money, something studios aren’t always willing to part with. As such, not everything has a dub. But what if it could?
On Wednesday, Amazon announced “AI-aided dubbing” for Prime Video. On select titles, viewers can choose to play an AI-generated dub of the script in either English or Latin American Spanish. Amazon says there are 12 titles that support this feature at this time, but only named three: El Cid: La Leyenda; Mi Mamá Lora; and Long Lost. The company also says “localization professionals” work with AI to “ensure quality control.” It’s not clear what that means, other than there are humans checking these AI dubs to make sure they aren’t mistranslating or making other mistakes due to hallucinations.
I have Prime Video, so I was interested to check out these dubs for myself to see how Amazon’s AI compared to, you know, human beings. In my search, I couldn’t find Mi Mamá Lora, but I could find the other two titles. In order to use the feature, you need to go into the language selector on the compatible title and choose the “AI beta.” Then, you can experience what I experienced.
El Cid: La Leyenda
There are a few titles on Prime Video going by the name of El Cid, but the only one that supports AI dubbing is this specific option: a 63 minute-long documentary about Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, otherwise known as El Cid. I wasn’t watching El Cid: La Layenda to learn more about this ruler from medieval Spain—I wanted to hear how well an AI bot would handle the English dubbing of a movie produced in Spanish.
The results are interesting, to say the least. Most of the speaking in the documentary happens via voiceover, which is extremely hit or miss. (“Hit” may be too generous.) When you know the voice is AI-generated, you pick out the bland or odd inflections. It’s classic AI-generated speech: items in a list are spoken in inconsistent tones; some words are slurred or artificially slowed down, as if the bot has had a drink or two. But in all honesty, I was expecting worse. This isn’t like watching a documentary narrated by the TikTok AI voice. It isn’t great (it’s not even good), but it does offer a bit more emotion than I expected.
The issues extend to the AI dubs of the documentary’s interviewees. In many cases, the voice is quite awkward, stilted, and full of the inconsistencies mentioned above. At times, the voice is completely devoid of any emotion, and does sound more like a voiceover tool from years past, rather than the “high quality” AI voices we’ve come to expect.
To Amazon’s credit, it does sound like the AI uses a different voice for each person it is dubbing. That makes it a bit easier to distinguish between the different speakers, and spares you from having to listen to the same mediocre AI voice for the entire movie.
Long Lost
Long Lost is a little more difficult to judge: The movie, originally produced in English, has an AI dub in Spanish. Since I don’t speak Spanish, it’s not as easy to pick out the robotic quirks your ear picks up on when you know the language.
Still, Long Lost offered a different experience than El Cid, since this is a movie: You get to hear how the AI handles dubbing over actors. Like the AI voiceover in the documentary, these AI actors aren’t as bad as I expected. I was anticipating AI voices delivering their lines totally flat, but there is some emotion here at times. No robot is winning an Oscar here, mind you: In fact, the voices can be quite awkward and lacking, reading the script too loudly, abruptly, or plainly. But, for some lines, I’m not sure I would assume these were AI voices if I didn’t already know ahead of time.
Even in more intense scenes, the AI does “try.” When the character screams, the AI raises its voice. It’s far from perfect, but it’s an interesting experiment to see what the AI can do:
In one scene, two characters compete in a game of “Chubby Bunny,” in which each has to continue adding marshmallows to their mouths while still being able to say “chubby bunny.” At times, the AI actually sounds muffled, and while it isn’t “realistic,” it’s a nice touch. (Perhaps this is where the human intervention comes into play.) At other times, however, the AI sounds totally normal, while the actors’ mouths are clearly full of marshmallow.
Another interesting quirk: One of the characters starts speaking in French, so the AI track cuts out and the original audio comes in. It’s jarring, because you can hear the difference immediately—not just the different languages, of course, but the difference in how the movie’s actual audio sounds when compared to the sterile AI output.
I’d like to try this feature again on a movie produced in Spanish with an AI English dub. I imagine it would be easier for me to pick out the issues, and to know whether more (or all) of the voices would sound totally fake.
Is the future of dubbing AI?
Look, there is no way I would genuinely enjoy watching an entire movie or series with an AI dub. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of human-generated dubs, so I have zero interest in one that, at times, sounds like a robot gunning for the EGOT.
But I have to admit, the tech isn’t terrible. At some points, the voices sound realistic enough for me to get the gist, especially when the voiceover would also be monotone and informative—such as during a documentary. And it’s interesting that these AI dubs can incorporate elements from the show or movie, like muffled speech during a game of Chubby Bunny.
I don’t want to see any voice actors put out of work here. They deserve to get paid for their labor and audiences deserve a high-quality dub on the shows and movies they pay to watch. However, I do think AI dubbing could offer a compromise for the times when no dub is on its way at all: If a studio isn’t going to pay for a dub anyway, it would be helpful to have a dub at all—even if it’s on the robotic side. That would certainly help visually impaired viewers, who might not be able to take advantage of subtitles.
Of course, it’s naive to think studios will only use this tech for those specific uses, rather than eliminate an entire human profession to save some cash. To that end, I’d be happy if the whole AI dubbing practice ends here and now: It’s interesting, but it’s not good, so please don’t replace real voice actors.
The First Four Settings to Change on Any Boox E-Ink Tablet
While they will never have the name recognition of the Amazon Kindle, e-ink devices from Chinese tech company Onyx International—sold under the slightly silly “Boox” brand name—are gaining a cult following in the U.S. I’ve reviewed three of its e-readers and digital notebooks over the past year, and I’m a huge fan. And if you’re reading this article, you probably are too (or soon will be).
I love Boox devices not only because they’re well built and full-featured (though if you want more of my thoughts there, check out my assessments of the Boox Palma, Note Max, and Note Air 4C). I also can’t get enough of their customizability. Nothing makes me crazier than trying to do something simple with a device, only to be stymied due to locked down software that doesn’t want to let me. From side-loading books onto a Kindle to doing—well, basically anything unsanctioned on an iPad, big companies seem determined to only let me do with my devices what they want me to do.
Boox devices are different: They run on an open version of Android that lets you do pretty much whatever you want. You can download any app in the Google Play Store, so you aren’t tied to one e-reading platform. If you want to sideload apps, feel free: Plug the device into your laptop and it will mount right to the desktop. If you’re truly ambitious, you can even install your own launcher to completely change things up.
While all this freedom is nice, it also means Boox devices have a bit more of a learning curve than, say, a plug-and-read Kindle. So if you are the new owner of one of these fantastic devices—whether an e-reader or a full-fledged digital notebook—here are four settings you should change right away to get the most out of it.
Set a one-touch refresh
Like any e-ink tablet, Boox devices suffer from occasional “ghosting,” or visible afterimages once you’ve turned a page. While the device will automatically refresh itself after a certain number of taps (touching the screen, basically), I like to set up a one-touch refresh that I can trigger whenever I want to. Depending on your device, there are a few ways to do this: a button or a gesture.
Setting a manual refresh on a Boox device with buttons
Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham
If you’ve got a Boox Palma or another device with page turn/volume buttons, you can map one of them to a screen refresh. For the Palma, it makes the most sense to use the Smart Button for this—that’s the button on the left hand side of the device, which can do different things based on whether you press it once, twice, or hold it down. On my own device, I’ve mapped a manual refresh to a single Smart Button press, as it’s the thing I find myself doing most often (that, or returning to the home screen, which is another of the many options you can choose). That said, you can also map a refresh to the volume buttons if you like (though I prefer to use those for page turns).
To remap your Smart Button, open the settings app and tap Smart Button. Tap your preferred option (Short-press Function, Double-click Function, or Long-press Function) and select Full-refresh.
Setting a manual refresh with a gesture
Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham
Not all Boox devices have buttons, so if yours doesn’t, you’ll need to map a manual refresh to a gesture. (Though you can also do this on the Palma, if you like.)
To get started, open Settings and scroll down to System Navigation. Under Bottom Navigation, tap More Settings. Choose the area of the screen you’d like to map the refresh to by swiping between the left, center, or right side options. Tap Custom and then choose Full-refresh from your list of options.
Choose your cloud storage option
Boox devices tend to have generous onboard storage, but you’ll get more out of them by linking your preferred cloud storage service on the system level. This will let you move files on and off the device without the need to plug it in to your computer.
To start, open Settings, then Accounts. Tap Move to Cloud Storage in Library, then select your preferred option from the list. You have a bunch of choices, including Dropbox and Google Drive. Tap the one you want, then log in.
Manage your sleep settings (if you listen to audiobooks)
Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham
In an effort to use my phone less, I’ve moved my audiobooks over to my Palma as well (the 128GB of storage comes in handy here). However, I was frustrated with the device as an audio player at first because I use a protective cover, and every time I closed it, it would go to sleep, turning off my audio. I found myself awkwardly trying to slip it into a pocket with the cover folded over, without accidentally touching the screen.
Then I discovered there’s a setting to fix this. Open settings, scroll down to Display, and ten turn off the toggle for Sleep or wake up the device using protective cover. Now your audio will keep playing even after you close the cover and stick it in your pocket. Yay!
While you’re at it, you might also want to turn off the automatic sleep option, as I find the device doesn’t always does seem to know if you are playing audio in the background and will turn itself off if you haven’t touched it in a while. Open Settings and tap Power, then Auto Sleep. You can choose options between 3 minutes to one hour. (If you choose “Never” the OS will warn you that this will reduce battery life, but unless you’re using wifi or Bluetooth and have the front light cranked up, it won’t really make that much difference, as e-ink screens only use power when they refresh.)
Change your lock screen image and screensaver
Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham
Boox devices have some handsome preset lock screen images, but if you want to make the device your own, you can set your own screensaver and wallpaper. This one is pretty straightforward: Choose Desktop & Screensaver in the Settings app—but if you want a custom image, you’ll first have to get it saved to the right spot.
The easiest way to do this is to find an image you like while browsing the internet using your Boox device. Long press on it and choose Download, which will save it to your downloads folder (naturally). Next, open up the Gallery app, tap your Download folder, and then tap the image you want. In the lower right, tap More and then Set as. You can choose to set it as the Screensaver, the Wallpaper, or the Power-Off image.
Alternately, you can plug the device into a computer and manually add the images to your Pictures folder. From there, you can change your wallpaper as described above, or just long press on the home screen and select the Wallpaper icon on the lower right; tap Local to find images saved to your Pictures folder. (And here’s another helpful hint: If you want to create your own wallpaper image in Photoshop or Canva, the dimensions are 824×1648 for the Boox Palma. For the Note Max or Note Air 4C, 1404 x 1872 should serve you well.)
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