Data Science

Can you sign an AI to a recording contract? Should you? How about hiring an AI recording engineer? Is its work Grammy-eligible? Shelly and Ross talk about the Grammys and how AI-models are starting to impact the music we hear. Ross’s son Theo shows off his cello chops and we chat about talking Teslas. Continue Reading →

There was a fascinating article in Wired the other day by Brian Barrett about a German artist named Simon Weckert who “hacked” Google Maps in a very interesting way. Continue Reading →

If data-driven storytelling were only about data, then every original show on Netflix or Prime Video should be a smash hit. But Netflix, Prime Video, and every other original production done by the “data rich” tech organizations have about the same production-to-hit ratio as professionally programmed old-fashioned, “data poor” networks. How can this be? Shouldn’t the data-driven programmers be better at predicting what stories will best fit an audience? What actor or actress will resonate? What music will work better? What story arc? Or at least knowing what an audience might be more likely to want? Continue Reading →

Walking along the railroad tracks up to the main building at Birkenau was chilling. I was about to enter the largest of the 40 Nazi extermination camps and sub-camps that made up the Auschwitz complex, and its reputation preceded it. Continue Reading →

At one of the pre-Grammy parties I attended, I was asked about controversy surrounding the way the Recording Academy (the organization that produces the Grammys) categorizes music for the show. This led to some very interesting questions: Who (or what) will be eligible to win a Grammy in 2030? What will the categories evolve into? Will music need to be recorded at all? Continue Reading →

Over the past couple of weeks, Google has made some unsubtle changes to its search results pages. To say that the line between paid ads and organic search results has been blurred is to understate in the extreme. Continue Reading →

Weather forecasting is tough. Very tough. It requires immense amounts of data and it is computationally intensive. But Google has published a paper that suggests that AI can use simple radar data to "nowcast" the weather with remarkable short-term accuracy. Continue Reading →

In order to comply with safety regulations, EVs are required to produce “artificial noise.” (I shall restrain myself from commenting on the wisdom of our lawmakers here.) Tesla is no exception and, because he can, Elon Musk will use the legislated external speakers to do more than make fake car noises — Teslas will now speak. Continue Reading →

A crowd gathered around some guy at CES who had stuck an antenna in a potato and said it was 5G enabled. That was a joke. If he had said that it was an AI-assisted superfood that learned from you every time you ate it, people probably would have placed orders for it. Continue Reading →

Have you ever met an “Artificial?” Samsung plans to introduce us to one on next week at CES 2020. At the moment, there is very little information about what Neon is or might be. Samsung has an uninformative twitter account @neondotlife, a teaser website neon.life and not much else. Continue Reading →