This week, a look at Sonos’ new logo, what’s really going on with Samsung’s voice-activated TVs, and Skype and Google introduce revolutionary new language translators.

Sonos shows off slick new pulsing logo

Sonos makes wireless speakers, and they recently unveiled a new logo, designed by Bruce Mau, that not only perfectly conveys what the company does, but is made for the digital age. Here it is:

When you scroll a web page, the logo appears to pulse in the same way sound waves pulse out from a central point. It’s an optical illusion created by the moiré pattern in the lines.

I’ve got a Sonos Play:5 in my kitchen that links up to my home wireless network, and I love it. There are a range of speaker sizes, including a sound bar and a subwoofer, and you can pair the speakers to create stereo and surround sound.

They all connect to your home media player and to the usual radio and music providers, including SiriusXM, Soundcloud, Spotify, and others.

Be careful what you say to your Samsung television

This week, some careful reading of a Samsung privacy statement revealed that the company’s smart televisions might be transmitting private conversations. One Twitter user realized that a section of the policy was eerily close to a section from George Orwell’s 1984.

The voice-activated screens work by having a separate company listen for key words that are used to operate the display and turn them into text. It’s not all as bad as it sounds, and today Samsung clarified its privacy policy.

The TVs won’t actually transmit conversations, it turns out. And users can always disable the voice activation feature. Of course, then you can’t talk to your TV.

Skype bringing translation to video communication

Since acquiring Skype, Microsoft has been pushing the communications service, and is rolling out a real-time translation feature.

The first dimension of Skype Translator allows for English-to-Spanish (and vice versa) voice translation, on the fly, and for more than 40 languages in the messaging part of the program.

This video shows a group of students trying the translation feature.

Microsoft says that Skype Translator operates on machine learning so that the more it gets used, the better the translations become.

Using your phone to translate

Google has rolled out a couple of new features for its Translate app, which is available for both Android and iOS.

With Word Lens you can point your mobile’s camera at a sign and have the text be instantly translated from English to and from French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

And updates to the Translate app mean that you can use it to assist in real-time conversations. The system automatically recognizes the languages being spoken and then provides audio translations for both conversants. The video below shows how it works.