Category: media-and-expression

Sunspring: A movie written by algorithms

I don’t actually believe Adrian was the first to tell me about Sunspring, but I spent some time watching this morning.

Its certainly not the first time someone has spoke about algorithms and machine learning to create media. But its the first time I’ve actually seen something… well…ummm interesting of sorts?

I wouldn’t say it was hilarious, more weirdly uncomplete. The training material can be eviladanced in what you see but as it jumps around a lot. Its worth watching and I’d be interested in what happens when you got something more clearer and unique? However what I was really wondering is…

screenshot-2016-06-09-123615jpg

Were the camera angles, shots, special effects, music, mood and colour grading also written by the algorithms? Heck was the title? It doesn’t seem like it but who knows. I guess the bigger question is does it even matter? So much of our media is middle of the road and made for the biggest audience, in my own opionion of course. Would it make much difference?

Of course the most interesting ideas are using a combination of machine learning with human direction. But thats for another post…

The press feedback is varied…  best to go check it out for yourself

My beautiful broken brain

I first heard about the documentary my beautiful broken brain via mindhacks. I then tracked it down and finally watched it. Lotje was 34 when she had the same kind of brain injury as myself. I ended up calling it #mybrushwithdeath.

Watching the documentary was unreal not only because there was so much I could relate directly to. The process of what she remembered and what she doesn’t really got me. I was in tears. There is absolutely no doubt I was incredibly lucky. The mix of reality and non-reality was frustrating to say the least, but I certainly didn’t have the big problem Lotje had with reading.

Some people will say why film it? Maybe the same people who asked why I would get on stage and do a TEDx talk about my experience? You only have to read the reviews to start to understand why, telling such a personal story is so important.

As a survivor of multiple strokes including a major hemorrhagic stroke in 1999 just 13 days after my 37th Birthday and a massive hemorrhagic stroke 2011 just before Christmas I can relate to the lady in this film, I went through and I am still going through a lot of what she had experienced from her stroke. I found this movie very good at explaining what we as stroke survivors are going through. I would highly recommend this movie to people who are interested stroke experiences and want to understand what we are going through because it is truly hard for us to explain to others what it is like to live life with our beautiful broken brains.

If I was to sum up the documantary, it would be the line from Lotje herself…

I’ve learned I’m strong, accepted my vurnability and focus on what matters…

Beautifully said…!

Mixed reality with compound documents?

WebVR-Logo

There is something quite exciting which i dont think most people have spotted. VR is nice and getting alot of attention recently. In theory, webvr could be more flexible that other vr engines because it’s the web; the browser’s are use to compound documents. While the other engines have to build all this stuff into their engines. My guess this might be the 2nd or 3rd reason why GearVR supports WebVR? It kinda already works in the lastest Firefox & Chrome, even works on Android Chrome (works for me without the dev version of Chrome, try it yourself)? Although polyfill might have some use here.

The nature of a compound document can enable multiple types of technology to be triggered from the same source. Say for example I could mix webvr with the geolocation api, orientation api and the webaudio api. Can you imagine the crazy experiences you can build with those things? I believe the JavaScript can run at the same time as everything else but this might be browser dependant.

It’s still a bit of a theory, but this could enable true mixed reality or (VisuoHaptic Mixed Reality if you must). Not that crappy stuff you currently see. Still like to see magic leap myself but to be honest Project foxeye interest me.

I’m looking to research this area with a bunch of smart people…

Peak inside BBC R&D via Facebook

LJ Rich contacted me asking if I was up for an experiment. Of course I said yes, and without really knowing a few weeks later I was roped into taking part in BBC News #24Live stream on Facebook. It was a bit of surprise but an enjoyable one, shame about the technical difficults at the start.
Unfortunately the only way to get the video out Facebook without hacking away at it, is to embed it complete with the javascript code. So enjoy it and flush your cache afterwards if you are not a FB fan.

 

 

We’re back!#24Live NOW: We’re taking an interactive look inside BBC Research and Development. Ever wanted to know what…

Posted by BBC News on Thursday, 7 April 2016

Kate Country Girl, Ian City Boy

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I was talking to my parents and told them to keep an ear out for the listening project conversation me and Kate did last year. We were told it would be on BBC Radio 4 on Friday night and Sunday Omnibus. But it was so funny seeing the programme information page for it with our smiley faces. Country Girl and City Boy is a fun title of course, and I can imagine which part of the conversation they might be playing, I assume a similar part to BBC Manchester. 

Describe that movie?

https://twitter.com/adew/status/711565905134788608

I saw this retweet from Adrian and had to give it a try.

A website developed by a Finnish technology team claims to be the world’s “first ever descriptive movie search engine”, and promises to solve that problem we all face when we can’t remember the name of a film.

To be fair so far its not been great with the searches I have done. Yes its early days and yes they have a mechanism to improve it.

But for example looking for Kil Bill – Lots of blood shed involving swords

Inception works with Dream within a dream and dreams collapase but if you type dream you get inception. Addiction works actually gets Requiem for a Dream but film about addiction in all its forms fails to list it at all. Looking for Citizen four with Edward Snowdon with the search Edward Snowdon, fails to include Citizen four. Dark City search with dark film starts with scene in the bath tub doesn’t include dark city at all. Last search I did was for The Beach, with sandy beach.

Nice idea, I’ll check it out again once things get better.

Our listening project conversation on BBC Radio 4

The BBC Radio 4 Listening project

Its weird, I seem to be popping up in a few places in the coming months.

Seems there is a very good chance I’ll be in BBC horizon’s how to find love online, then theres my TedXManchester talk, first dates if I ever hear anything back from them.  But of course there’s the listening project which Kate was kind enough to join me on.

Today I learned, myself and Kate’s conversation for the listening project will be on BBC Radio 4 in the next month.

Friday April 8th at 23.55 and then repeated again on the Sunday omnibus on April 10th. They should make a good birthday present.

I have no idea which bit they will play but if its anything like BBC Manchester’s edit, it should make a good listen.

Horizon’s How to find love online, coming in summer

Thanks to Mr30notsoflirty for the tweet pointing at the new Horizon line coming soon to BBC Two.

Interestingly… I thought they would push for a valentine date. But the love online is in the second half of the line up, meaning  you will have to wait for June or July. Of course I can’t say anything but you can look some of the run up.

Unfortunately I can’t see the video because I’m currently outside the UK and my proxy isn’t working as expected at the moment over this slower connection in Lagos, Portugal. But I gather it includes scenes of people I will know quite well… So instead here is the summary from the site.

How To Find Love Online
The internet has transformed every part of our lives and is now changing arguably the most important – our love lives. Internet dating is a cultural phenomenon and is now the second most common way that couples meet. But what is the best way to make the online search for love successful? What are the ‘matchmaking’ algorithms that the big companies use? Do they really deliver the goods, is it really clever marketing and actually a giant con – is there really any science?

Dr Hannah Fry studies patterns in human behaviour and has been studying the underlying algorithms that power internet dating sites. Dr Xand Van Tulleken is single and looking for love and, with help from Hannah, he experiences the world of online dating, from creating the perfect profile to looking at the biological basis of love.

How I learned the player was cancelled

Screenshot of my linux desktop

I have been watching quite a few new American TV shows and one of them was the Player with Wesley Snipes. But in the usual way, some turn into duds which I stop watching (minority report), some are hits and I can’t get enough of (limitless) and some just get cancelled before I can really make a decision either way (the player).

The weird thing was how I learned the player was cancelled.

I use Trakt.tv to quantify my media usage and it also tells me how far behind I am (handy if you have friends who like to spoil things for you or use social media a lot). I decided a while ago this kind of ambient information could make up my desktop as a picture via Wallch which grabs a url (in this case my trakt.tv’s progress page) pipes it to a image which makes up my background.

When the screen is locked, the background is un-obscured and I noticed the other day, the text surrounding the the player saying the show had ended. Ended I thought? Looked it up and yes the end, no conclusion or answers to the mysteries. Just gone.

Trakt shot end of the player

Of course American TV networks have a long standing for just killing shows. The most famous being Firefly or course. So surprised minority report was canned ages ago.