Category Archives: Cognitive Services

Using Cognitive Computing to Humanize Computer Interaction

Using Cognitive Computing to Humanize Computer Interaction

Cognitive InteractionEvery so often there is a fundamental shift in how we interact with “machines”. The era of cognitive computing is about to trigger a new shift.

The background

It is easy to forget how far input devices have evolved since the first automated computing devices were introduced just over a century ago. Today we are all used to touching, swiping and pinching using our fingers, on the screens in order to interact with machines.

Computer and MouseThis move to touch was a radical shift from typing on a computer keyboard or using a mouse (more recent), which was the norm, since the first automated computing devices were introduced just over a century ago.

 

ITouchscreent is pretty amazing to think that today we use touch to interact with machines daily. We rarely give that a second thought. Touch has undoubtedly augmented existing interaction models and opened new possibilities. There are now many things where touch is simply the best method of interacting with a machine.

Despite the innovation it is a fact that we have still not been able to really humanize the experience of working with computers or machines.

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Deep Learning – What is it and why does it matter?

Deep Learning – what on earth does that mean?

Title ImageHave you ever wondered just what this phrase Deep Learning is referring to and why it matters? If so then this post is for you!

In my last post, I demystified a variety of buzzwords, and explained that Deep Learning is a subset of Machine Learning. This post explores the world of deep learning for non-mathematicians (just like myself). In doing so it:

  • Touches on convolutional neural networks;
  • Explains the impact Deep Learning is having on Cognitive Computing;
  • Outlines a few examples of Cognitive Computing (Deep Learning) in action.

Starting with Artificial Neural Networks

To understand Deep Learning, you must first understand a little about Artificial Neural Networks. Don’t worry – as I am not a data scientists I will not try to describe the mathematics behind it all. That means no talk beyond this sentence of weighting, activation functions and more.

Deep Learning normally revolves around the use of Artificial Neural Networks with more than 1 hidden layers. More on what a hidden layer is shortly.  The theory is that the more hidden layers you have the more you can isolate specific regions of data to classify things.

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The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing Drone Journey – Last Installment

Introduction to the Drone Journey

Final Installment

This post is the eleventh, and final, post in documenting the steps I went through on my journey to build an autonomous, voice-controlled, face recognizing drone. There are 10 other posts building up to this one which you can find at the end of this post.

Focus of this post

In this post I will share a video of the complete end-to-end demo and share details of the architecture which sits behind it. I will also share information on what I bought/used to bring this all together and relist all the different software, services and node packages in a single place.

Pulling It All Together

A lot of what we have been doing with this project is humanizing the way we communicate with machines/computers/things. That means talking and observing to drive intelligent interaction rather than using a mouse, keyboard or touch screen.

Our Autonomous Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing, Drone is a smart drone which showcases, albeit crudely, how interaction with services filled with intelligence is going to evolve. It highlights the importance of cognitive services to the success of organizations in the future.

So with that said take a look at the entire end to end demo in the video below.

Continue reading The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing Drone Journey – Last Installment

The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing, Drone Journey – Part 8

Introduction to the Drone Journey

Speech to Text

This post is the eighth post in documenting the steps I went through on my journey to build an autonomous, voice-controlled, face recognizing drone. There are 7 other posts building up to this one which you can find at the end of this post.

Focus of this post

We have come a long way from when we first started with a drone controlled from the computer. In the last post we spent time understanding how to use the Bing Speech API to convert supplied text to speech. In this post we will:

  • Show how you can use the Bing Speech API to derive text from speech.
  • Integrate that approach into our DroneWebServer.js web application and front end HTML so that we can control the drone via speech.

Continue reading The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing, Drone Journey – Part 8

The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing, Drone Journey – Part 7

Introduction to the Drone Journey

Text to Speech

This post is the eighth post in documenting the steps I went through on my journey to build an autonomous, voice-controlled, face recognizing drone. There are 7 other posts building up to this one which you can find at the end of this post.

Focus of this post

This post is going to make use of another of the APIs offered by Microsoft Cognitive Services – the Bing Speech API. Back in post 4, seems a long time ago now, I explained how to sign up for the various services and get the API key.

You will need to go back now and ensure you copy the BING Speech API key as we will use that in our next steps.

By the end of this post we will have the drone speaking to us when it lands.

Continue reading The Voice-Controlled, Face Recognizing, Drone Journey – Part 7