Multiple Speaker Recognition

Assistants can now recognize individual voice patterns.  Have trained my own that way, usually by repeating phrases.   And that categorization is important to understand context. But this is usually in a forced, single person situation.  More broadly, the 'cocktail party' problem is harder,  beyond just a voice print, also using the context of the words spoken.  Takes it beyond controlled environment dialog.  Good challenge.

An AI has learned how to pick a single voice out of a crowd   By Richard Gray

Devices like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home can usually deal with requests from a lone person, but like us they struggle in situations such as a noisy cocktail party, where several people are speaking at once.

Now an AI that is able to separate the voices of multiple speakers in real time promises to give automatic speech recognition a big boost, and could soon find its way into an elevator near you.

The technology, developed by researchers at the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was demonstrated in public for the first time at this month’s Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies show in Tokyo.

It uses a machine learning technique the team calls “deep clustering” to identifies unique features in the “voiceprint” of multiple speakers. It then groups the distinct features from each speaker’s voice together, allowing it to disentangle multiple voices and then reconstruct what each person was saying. “It was trained using 100 English speakers, but it can separate voices even if a speaker is Japanese,” says Niels Meinke, a spokesperson for Mitsubishi Electric. .... "

Blockchain Used for Contract Management

Interesting use of the smart contract idea by very digital companies.   The example of its use and value is very useful.  Note the Open Source use of Hyperledger.

SINGAPORE - 16 Sep 2016: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it has signed a contract with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) to examine the design, management and execution of contracts among business partners using blockchain technologies. The two companies will begin by piloting blockchain to automate business transactions between the two companies.

This is one of the first projects built on the Hyperledger Project fabric, an open-source blockchain platform, to use blockchain for real-life contract management on the IBM Cloud.

IBM and BTMU have built a prototype of smart contracts on a blockchain to improve the efficiency and accountability of service level agreements in multi-party business interactions. The bank plans to begin using it to manage contracts within their business in fiscal year 2017. In addition, IBM and BTMU aim to manage agreements between the two companies with the system by the end of fiscal year 2017. To help improve efficiency, IBM and BTMU will monitor delivery and usage of equipment with a sensor that embeds information into the blockchain. This will then automate invoicing and payment processes between the two companies. .... " 

Ultra Simple User Interfaces

The best user interface should predictively anticipate our needs.    Focus us on the right data and tools to do our job best.    Feed us the proper sensor readings to protect us, and to provide information in value sorted order.   And at the same time not confuse us with complexity.  In CWorld: Mitsubishi on its ultra simple machine interface.  Calling it a predictive agent.   Agent to me implies an element of autonomy.   For automobiles and their internal and external environments.

Linking Wearables and Augmented Reality

The vendor Metaio is speaking and displaying at the upcoming Consumer Electronics show.  The link between wearables and AR is obvious.   Particularly interesting is the mention of maintenance applications, which we explored for manufacturing applications.

" ... With smartwatches and Google Glass projected to sell tens of millions of units in the next few years, 2014 will begin a new era of wearable computing devices, all of which can be enhanced by visualization technology like Augmented Reality. Metaio, the Augmented Reality Company, will deliver live demonstrations with these devices on the exhibition floor at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show.

Metaio will showcase both consumer-focused and enterprise augmented reality apps on the latest wearable computing platforms like the EPSON Moverio and the Vuzix M-100. Among the demonstrations shown will be a 3-D maintenance app for a Mitsubishi Electric HVAC unit; a demo that allows potential car buyers to switch out components on a vehicle; and “Mirage”, the first AR Browser for wearable computing.... " 

Update on Eldercare Robotics

As a country with greatly skewed demographics, Japan has been doing much in the area of eldercare robotic applications. Here is a Cnet article on new progress. As these ideas progress, they are likely to have broader uses.

" ... "In the type of aging society that we foresee, the situation will likely get to the point where there will be little choice but to get some help from them (robots)," said Isao Shimoyama, dean of the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Information Science and Technology.

Shimoyama is among a group of University of Tokyo researchers who are working with counterparts from seven leading Japanese firms--including Toyota Motor, Fujitsu Laboratories and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries--to develop robotic and information technology that will lead to a new generation of robots in the next 15 years.

"If you leave clothes lying around, a robot might pick them up for you and put them in the washing machine," Shimoyama said. "Once they are dry, it might fold them up and put them away."

Prototypes of new robots capable of performing mundane tasks will be unveiled in 18 months ... "