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 … Continue reading

Episode 155 – Holiday Potluck

Gearing up for the festive season, Michael and Michael serve up a veritable smorgasbord of holiday potluck delights. Starting with well, um, leftovers from last week, Fitbit has indeed acquired the technology, software assets and intellectual property of Pebble and many of the people from Pebble will be joining Fitbit to continue their work on wearable technology. This brings up an interesting point on the nature of cloud services and the integration with physical devices — that one without the other does not work, as products and services are becoming more and more intertwined. Moving on to appetizers, Cortana now … Continue reading

Episode 145 – Can you hear me now?

This week we look at how voice technology is improving and enabling new kinds of interactions at work and within games. We look at how microphone technology is impacting the adoption of smaller voice assistants. We explore the accuracy of text transcription verses typing. We think through our own use of voice technology and digital assistants. And we add new features to our website, text-based, thanks to Twitter’s new DM button. We also change our whatcha playing segment to look at what are we exploring. And we end the show with a challenge to our listeners. We’d love to hear … Continue reading