Attempts to develop voice assistants are no longer limited to improving the pronunciation of words or speeding up answers and responses. Rather, they are moving towards simulating the details of real human dialogue. From pauses and feelings of hesitation to laughter and interaction while the other party is speaking. In this direction, the company “Block”, led by “Jack Dorsey”, one of the founders of “Twitter”, revealed an audio model called “Dessa”, as a two-way audio model that listens and speaks at the same time.
His idea is to make the conversation more flexible; The user can interrupt him in the middle of speaking, listen to him and respond, instead of waiting for the response to end to start a new intervention. The model also makes short reaction sounds while listening, mimicking the signals humans use to show focus and follow through.
A modern model that learns by listening
According to Block, Desa was trained from scratch on recordings of human conversations, without relying on scripts or a pre-trained language model. The model processes the sound directly to produce a quick audio response, unlike systems that rely on converting speech into text, then generating a response and converting it back into sound.
The importance of this approach lies in dealing with elements that are not conveyed by written words alone, such as tone, frequency, and timing of response. However, simulating these elements does not necessarily mean that the model understands the speaker's feelings or experiences similar feelings.
The company says that the model supports working locally on a MacBook Pro equipped with an M4 Max chip or higher. As for its training, it was conducted, according to its announcement, using the “NVIDIA GP200 NVL72” supercomputing system, and here the difference is highlighted between the resources needed to build and train the model, and those required to run it after that.
Conversations closer to humans
In the recordings published by the company, Dessa appears laughing during the conversation, leaving pauses, and interacting with the other party’s words before they are completed. These details give the conversation a rhythm closer to spontaneous human conversation, where the roles overlap rather than moving strictly between question and answer.
But the clips that the company chooses to showcase its technology are not alone enough to judge its performance in various circumstances. The evaluation requires independent tests that measure the quality of the response, the accuracy of the content, and the ability to deal with different voices, languages, and noise.
Research project and open questions
Desa, according to what the company announced, is still an early research project, and has not been released as a product available to the public, with early access provided to a small group of safety researchers to test the risks and drawbacks.
In the end, the importance of “Desa” lies not only in its ability to make a user laugh, hesitate, or interrupt, but also in that it comes one step closer to making talking with artificial intelligence feel natural and unassuming. If these models succeed in converting this sensation into better understanding and a more accurate and useful response, voice may become one of the most natural forms of interaction with artificial intelligence in the coming years.
Microsoft announced on Monday that it has offered about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, to voluntarily terminate their service, as part of the technology giant’s efforts to reduce costs while pumping significant investments in artificial intelligence.
A Microsoft spokesman said that the offer includes employees in specific teams in the United States, Canada, India, and Britain, who hold positions at the level of vice president and below, while certain categories are excluded, including some workers in data centers, sales, and marketing.
The company's Executive Vice President and Responsible for Human Resources, Amy Coleman, said in a memo addressed to employees, "The voluntary separation offer reflects an important aspect of developing our approach to dealing with change, by providing more flexibility and giving employees, where possible, broader options to shape the next stage of their career."
This is the second time that Microsoft has offered its employees voluntary termination of service this year. In April, it was reported that the company had offered about 7 percent of its employees in the United States the option of early retirement.
About 30 percent of eligible employees chose to benefit from the voluntary retirement plan, according to CNBC. The number of Microsoft employees around the world reached 223,000 at the end of June, down from 228,000 at the end of 2025, according to documents the company submitted to regulatory bodies.
The company is expected to announce its quarterly financial results later this week.
The American CNN network asked a question about the offer made by Tesla earlier this month for a “flying” version of its new “Roadster” car. She said that people have always dreamed of owning flying cars since the beginning of the era of aviation and cars. Does the offer mean that we are close to achieving this dream?
She added that if you are looking for a vehicle capable of safely driving on highways and flying long distances at the same time, the answer is: no. But if you aspire to own a personal flying vehicle that operates at relatively low altitudes and covers distances comparable to those traveled by cars on their usual trips, then we have become closer to this reality.
Here, the world of electric vehicles with vertical take-off and landing, known as “eVTOL,” emerges, a sector that is witnessing rapid growth. These vehicles cannot travel on land roads, and some do not even have wheels.
However, many companies are racing to develop vehicles that look like they have just come out of a sci-fi or anime movie, and some have already begun offering these vehicles for sale.
Christina Minton, Vice President of the Aviation Department at Pivotal, one of the manufacturers of eVTOL vehicles, says, “The idea of the (flying car) has captured people’s imaginations for generations, and today this enthusiasm is translating into real investments and innovations in this sector.”
She adds: “It is easy to understand why this idea is attractive; Instead of spending 90 minutes stuck in traffic, you can reach your destination in 20 minutes by flying in the sky.”
eVTOL vehicles are characterized by their very light weight compared to traditional cars, have limited carrying capacity, and their range per trip usually does not exceed 100 miles (about 160 kilometers). It is also not designed to operate on land roads.
Pivotal's Blackfly is one of several electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles that are beginning to attract attention as representing the future of private aviation.
Even if they don't run on asphalt, some proponents argue that flying vehicles with vertical take-off and landing (eVTOLs) should be classified as "cars" according to the strictest definition of that word; Any vehicle capable of transporting passengers from one point to another.
Rani Plaut, co-founder and CEO of Air, an Israeli company that plans to manufacture eVTOLs at a facility in Florida, notes that flying “cars” may attract drivers who want to avoid problematic roads and traffic congestion.
Among the companies claiming to be developing a real flying car is California startup Aleph, whose CEO, Jim Duchovny, says the prototype, which has a top speed of about 55 miles per hour, was designed to be both an airplane and a car, rather than trying to adapt one to perform the other's function.
This vehicle uses eight propellers inside its structure to take off. It is also equipped with four wheels and is designed to move on the ground. The Model A vehicle can carry only one person, provided that its weight is less than the weight of the empty vehicle, and it lacks standard safety equipment such as airbags.
However, Dukhovny insists that it should be considered a “car” and not just an eVTOL.
“eVTOLs are intended for the aviation market,” Dukhovny says, “and our real competitors are companies like Toyota, Ford, and Tesla.”
For his part, Roger Connor, curator of the vertical aviation collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, believes that trying to combine the functions of a car and an airplane raises many fundamental engineering challenges. Airplanes are very sensitive to weight, while cars require heavy equipment.
“Any vehicle that combines the two will ultimately be an underperforming plane and an underperforming car at the same time,” he told CNN.
