Tag Archives: Analytics

Analytics, Architecture, Azure, Bing Speech API, Cloud, Cognitive Services, Data Visualization, Drone, Face API, Internet Of Things, IoT, IoT Hub, PowerBI

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

February 9, 2017 Mark Torr Leave a comment

Introduction to the Drone Journey

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 →

Analytics, Cognitive Services, Drone

Building an autonomous, voice-controlled face recognizing drone

January 19, 2017 Mark Torr Leave a comment

The inspiration

Our world, and the technology landscape that is helping to fuel it, are changing at a staggering pace. With nearly 20 years in the IT industry the only constant I have had to handle is change.

Many years ago I resolved to ensure I was learning on all levels and, while possible, that includes keeping my hands near the tools of the transformation. The technology!

The quote above really sums up why twice a year I try to find a side project that lets me dive deep into selective technology I have not used much previously. I do that so that I can “touch” it. That in turn enables me understand it, and how it might be useful, better.

I value such periods. The time spent on such projects helps me when it comes to my day to day job of helping steer the business and helping companies transform through the use of new technologies.

With that in mind, in the run up to Christmas, I was looking around for my next project. It was then I stumbled across a blog post from October 2016 by Lukas Biewald. The blog post was entitled “How to build an autonomous, voice-controlled, face recognizing drone for $200“. I knew immediately I had found my next project.

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Analytics, Architecture, Big Data, Internet Of Things, IoT

The IoT Continuum – How do you see it?

February 2, 2016 Mark Torr Leave a comment

The IoT Continuum

Over the past months I have read a great deal about the Internet of Things (IoT) and how companies are moving forwards with it.

Looking across all the stories on the web it is clear that there is an IoT Continuum when you look at the different types of projects out there which many vendors are talking about.

This post shares some phases which I have summarized. I am interested to know if you think there are intermediate phases or even phases before or after these. I would also love to hear if you would alter the names and the focus!

Introducing the IoT Continuum

There are three things I see happening today with a fourth one maybe being the future. Certain projects will contain multiple phases of the continuum over time with each building on the previous one and each phase might be a milestone in a much bigger goal.

You might have ideas for different names for these and I would be very open to hearing your thoughts on that. The main question I want you to think about, after reading the phase descriptions below, is if you see different phases I have missed altogether? If so please share your thoughts and pointers to the stories that support them as I am eager to learn.

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Analytics

Predictive Apps vs. Predictive Analytics

October 6, 2015 Mark Torr Leave a comment

Predictive Apps vs. Predictive Analytics. Is it really a battle between the two or is one a subset of the other? Many of us use what I would describe as predictive apps, in our consumer life, day to day but does the idea extend beyond the consumer realm and into the business? How does predictive analytics fit into the picture?

Below are a few of my thoughts but I am also interested in what you see as the difference, if any. Would you use a different phrase?

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Big Data, Market Watch

Is it the end for Big Data?

September 2, 2015 Mark Torr Leave a comment

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3114217

When Gartner published their recent “2015 Hype Cycle For Emerging Technologies” they did something many were not expecting. They removed Big Data.

Now rewind back to March 2014 – it is not that long ago. I was honoured to be a member of the sponsor panel at the Gartner BI Summit in London. During that session they asked each of the panellists if the term Big Data would still be around in 3 years time. My answer was that I thought the term would be gone by then (read a CBR article here). Here is the quote of what I said from the CBR article “My personal view about this is Big Data has been around forever and it will keep growing. Technology is going to change so it will move forward, but frankly it is just a buzzword, it will go away, there will be something else”

Is this latest Gartner move the end of Big Data as a term? Is my prediction coming true?

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