Last year, we (a couple of people who knew nothing about how voice search works) set out to make a video about the research that’s gone into teaching computers to recognize speech and understand language.
Making the video was eye-opening and brain-opening. It introduced us to concepts we’d never heard of – like machine learning and artificial neural networks – and ever since, we’ve been kind of fascinated by them. Machine learning, in particular, is a very active area of Computer Science research, with far-ranging applications beyond voice search – like machine translation, image recognition and description, and Google Voice transcription.
So… still curious to know more (and having just started this project) we found Google researchers Greg Corrado and Christopher Olahand ambushed them with our machine learning questions.
computers
Friday afternoon desk rearrangement.
(Yes, it’s standing)
(Star Wars drawings by the chiddlers)
This is a Volvelle a Medieval Computer…
“This is a volvelle, a medieval device that allowed you to calculate the phases of the moon and the latter’s position in relation to the sun. The dials, with their charming depictions of moon and sun, tell you what you need to know. What’s most remarkable about the device is not so much its crafty nature – it consists of complex layers of rotating disks – but that it is usually fitted inside a medieval book. Some are so bulky that they pierce the adjacent pages. What a surprise it must have been for the medieval reader who thumbed through such a book for the first time. Turning a page, he or she was confronted with an ingenious piece of machinery. A medieval computer.”
Paul Greer 