Episode 181 – Robotic Rockband

Baby, don’t hurt me.  Or order things on my Amazon Echo when I don’t want them.  Michael and Michael start off this episode talking about the South Park season premiere, which plays a prank on the viewers by the audio dialog of the show launching commands on the viewer’s voice controlled devices (such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home).

I for one, welcome our new rockin’ robotic rockband overlords.  And when you watch the video of Nigel Stanford’s Automatica, we think you will too.

Michael and Michael wrap up this episode talking about the recently concluded NASA Cassini mission and reminisce about their favorite space missions.

Selected links 

Uproxx Article: The ‘South Park’ Season Premiere Caused Havoc With People’s Amazon Echos and Google Homes — http://uproxx.com/technology/south-park-premiere-amazon-echo-google-home/

Slashfilm article: Cool Stuff: ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ Illustrated Edition Gets Animated on Kindle —  http://www.slashfilm.com/animated-harry-potter-kindle/

Automatica by Nigel Stanford — https://nigelstanford.com/Automatica/

TechCrunch article: Watch this robot rock band destroy their instruments — https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/14/nigel-stanford-automatica/

CYMATICS: Science Vs. Music – Nigel Stanford — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3oItpVa9fs

NASA article: The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini — https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/the-saturn-system.html

NASA e-books — https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/index.html

Kotaku article: Nintendo Will Release Its Classic Arcade Games On Switch — https://kotaku.com/nintendo-will-release-its-classic-arcade-games-on-switc-1808933486

What are the hosts’ favorite space missions?

Michael M — Apollo 11 — https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html

Michael R — Maven — https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/maven/main/index.html
Mars Satellites — https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars/main/index.html
Mars Rovers — https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/

Episode 180 – Augmented Beer Goggles

 Jan 2008 Activeworlds video of Van Gogh mashup of multiple paintings

Augmented reality is hitting the news every few moments, you can crack open a cold one and start seeing things.  Or you can try on a new hair color from the app by Modiface.  Of course, you can experiment with how you would look in a new pair of shades from Ray-Ban.

For even more fun, the Art Gallery of Ontario uses the ReBlink app to have the people in the paintings take selfies of the art gallery patrons taking selfies of them.  This reminded Michael and Michael of the Activeworlds creation of the Van Gogh world, and the YouTube video tour Michael M made in 2008 (above).

Not being content with the pure visual elements of augmented reality, the pair discusses the Zach Lieberman’s example of recording sound in space — a very interesting way to visualize that there’s something auditory “there” from a geo-spatial perspective to be discovered.

 

Following on the auditory thread to round out this episode, Michael and Michael talk about the recent South Park season premiere, and how sound, both audible to the human ear, and not audible to the human ear can be used to issue commands.

Plenty of links in the show notes today for all the topics the team covered, so you can jump right to them and learn more.

Selected links 

Windows Mixed Reality — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mixed_RealityMicrosoft Mixed Reality Dev Kit — https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/mixed-reality
Digital Trends article:  Augmented Reality Bottle Labels Could Change the Way You View Beer — https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/brewery-uses-augmented-reality-bottle-labels/
Pokemon Go — http://www.pokemongo.com
Google Translate on Google Play — https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.translate&hl=en
Google Translate on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-translate/id414706506?mt=8
Ingress — https://www.ingress.com/intel
Zombies Go on Google Play — https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hitgpx.zombiego&hl=en
Zombies Go on iTunes — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zombies-go-fight-dead-walking-everywhere-augmented/id831751766?mt=8
Ghostsnap — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-z4GUVzc2EY
Yelp Monocle — http://www.wikihow.com/Use-the-Augmented-Reality-Monocle-on-the-Yelp-for-iPhone-App
FastCompany Design article:  These Classical Artworks Come to Life to Make Fun of your Museum Selfie — https://www.fastcodesign.com/90133286/these-classical-artworks-come-to-life-to-make-fun-of-your-museum-selfie
Alex Mahew’s ReBlink app — http://www.ago.net/reblink
Art Gallery of Ontario — https://ago.ca/?q=home
Thespis — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thespis_(opera)
Durham Savoyards — http://durhamsavoyards.org
Edward Munch’s The Scream — https://www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp
ActiveWorlds virtual recreation of Vincent Van Gogh’s home in Arles, France — http://www.activeworlds.com/vangogh/index.htm
9To5Mac article: New AR demo apps preview hair coloring, and a fun way to leave messages for kids — https://9to5mac.com/2017/09/07/cool-arkit-demos/
Modiface — http://www.modiface.com
Zach Lieberman’s tweet & video of recording sound in space — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary_Lieberman
Glasses.com virtual try on — http://www.glasses.com/virtual-try-on
SixColors article: Reports of ultrasonic attack on voice assistants more sound than fury — https://sixcolors.com/post/2017/09/reports-of-ultrasonic-attack-on-voice-assistants-more-sound-than-fury/
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long,_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish
Mashable article: Extraordinary iPhone App Identifies 2.6 Million TV Shows by “Listening” — http://mashable.com/2011/01/31/intonow/#BSKklHnZ1GqQ
TechCrunch article:  Yahoo is Shutting Down IntoNow, Nearly Three Years After Acquisition — https://techcrunch.com/2014/01/28/to-every-social-tv-app-turn-turn-turn/
Soundhound — https://soundhound.com
Shazam — https://www.shazam.com
Uproxx article:  The ‘South Park’ Season Premier Caused Havoc With People’s Amazon Echos and Google Homes — http://uproxx.com/technology/south-park-premiere-amazon-echo-google-home/

What are the hosts playing?

Michael R:  Colorcube — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/colorcube/id1076402133?mt=8
Michael M:  Flic button to turn pages on your favorite music app — https://flic.io/blog/Musicians-turn-page-Flic

Episode 179 – May The Merch Be With You

BB-9E augmented reality

In honor of Force Friday part deux, Michael and Michael geek out on all the awesomeness that is Star Wars merchandise now available for sale.

You could use have a Lenovo-enabled lightsaber battle.

You could build your own R2-D2 with a littleBits kit.

You could own your very own Corellian freighter of your very own, putting together over 7,500 pieces in the new, and most awesome Millennium Falcon model from Lego.

Switching gears, the team discusses the interaction among & between conversational artificial intelligences, and how they could do a platform of platform strategy play to talk with other AIs to gain the benefit of those services, all via natural language as the interface.

You’ll find drones, droids and how to do much more in this episode!

Selected links 

Star Wars iOS app — https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-wars/id960108075?mt=8

Business Insider article:  The hype around ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is kicking into high gear — here’s what Disney just announced — http://www.businessinsider.com/new-star-wars-the-last-jedi-toys-2017-8

Battle Chess (Commodore 64) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Chess

Archon — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon:_The_Light_and_the_Dark

TechCrunch article:  The littleBits Droid Inventor Kit lets you build an R2-D2 of your very own — https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/31/the-littlebits-droid-inventor-kit-lets-you-build-an-r2-d2-of-your-very-own/

Nerdist article:  New Lego Millennium Falcon Is The Largest Set Ever — http://nerdist.com/star-wars-lego-millennium-falcon-largest-set-ever/http://nerdist.com/star-wars-lego-millennium-falcon-largest-set-ever/

TechCrunch article:  Bragi’s Dash and Dash Pro wireless earbuds to get Amazon Alexa — https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/01/bragis-dash-and-dash-pro-wireless-earbuds-to-get-amazon-alexa/

TechCrunch article: Nobody is going to ask Cortana to talk to Alexa — https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/31/nobody-is-going-to-ask-cortana-to-talk-to-alexa/

Dark Sky — https://darksky.net/app

TechCrunch article: Google reveals the top things people want to find out ‘How to” do — https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/01/google-reveals-the-top-things-people-want-to-find-out-how-to-do/

How to Fix a Toilet — http://how-to-fix-a-toilet.com

Icon Factory — https://iconfactory.com

The Noun Project — https://thenounproject.com

An Event Apart Josh Clark: The Tools I Use — https://aneventapart.com/news/post/josh-clark-the-tools-i-use

The Durham Savoyards — http://durhamsavoyards.org

Episode 178 – L33T Learning Siri

 

Just say no to enabling autonomous bots & drones with the ability to apply lethal force.  Following on last week’s episode 177, Michael & Michael start off with a continuation of the discussion on the Pandora’s Box of armed robots.

Moving on to a happier topic, while still staying on the machine learning concept, the pair talks about how Siri and other voice interactive systems have been improved with deep learning.  Not just recorded scripts, but actual intelligence, and more natural interaction is apparent when you listen to how far things have come since the earliest days of Siri — listen to the examples from the Apple Machine Learning Journal article, and we think you’ll agree.

Understanding that you’re talking with a bot vs a human is important to help avoid the uncanny valley where the interaction becomes weird vs expected — perhaps this is why Michael R preferred the Australian accent reminiscent of J.A.R.V.I.S, and how in Star Trek and other science fiction, interaction with the computer was prefaced with “computer!” before issuing a request.

Feedback loops getting faster & faster, which is really evident in machine learning examples applied to games.  When the machine — the program — is experimenting with the game to learn, and figure out what is rewarded, what is not rewarded, and determine a heuristic model for playing the game, which for a human is for fun and for the machine learning example is to maximize the outcome.  The example from the O’Reilly article was particularly intriguing to Michael M who wondered why the AI playing the game did not scoop up each and every present while playing the game.  Michael R made the interesting point that if the machine learning algorithms assume that there’s an infinite number of presents ahead, it makes more sense to quickly move forward and grab the presents because there are more ahead of you than behind.  The screenshot above is from a machine learning model playing Super Mario Kart, where it is easy to see how machine learning quickly gets better and better with successive plays of the game.

Closing out this episode, Michael and Michael include David Ma’s videos of food imagined in the style of  famous directors, a funny song about waffles and a discussion on Zork.  Hope you enjoy these tasty treats!

Selected links 

last week’s show, E177 — What could possibly go wrong? — https://gamesatwork.biz/2017/08/31/episode-177-what-could-possibly-go-wrong/

An open letter to the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons — https://futureoflife.org/autonomous-weapons-open-letter-2017

We don’t have long to act — https://qz.com/1058280/we-do-not-have-long-to-act-teslas-tsla-elon-musk-and-others-warn-the-un-about-autonomous-weapons

Six Colors article:  Deep Learning Improves Siri’s voice — https://sixcolors.com/link/2017/08/deep-learning-improves-siris-voice/

Apple’s Machine Learning Journal:  Deep Learning for Siri’s Voice: On-device Deep Mixture Density Networks for Hybrid Unit Selection Synthesis — https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/08/06/siri-voices.html

Uncanny Valley — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

J.A.R.V.I.S. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Jarvis#J.A.R.V.I.S.

O’Reilly article:  Bringing gaming to life with AI and deep learning — https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/bringing-gaming-to-life-with-ai-and-deep-learning

YouTube:  Super MarI/O Kart Commentary — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Y_I9vY8Qw

Food by Favorite Directors (Sort Of) — https://www.subtraction.com/2017/08/14/food-by-famous-directors-sort-of/

YouTube:  What if Alfonso Cuaron made pancakes?  — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_hpJHNt4IE

Do You Like Waffles?  By Parry Gripp — https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/do-you-like-waffles/id468568946?i=468568983

MIT Technology Review — The Enduring Legacy of Zork — https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608670/the-enduring-legacy-of-zork/

MIT Technology Review article:  Siri for Business — https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600990/siri-for-business/