Getting the Gang Back Together
The Gareth and BillCast
To celebrate/commemorate a year since the last World Service broadcast of Digital Planet Gareth, Bill, Ghislaine, Angelica (online) and Ania are meeting up in a wine bar in central London on the evening of March 28 and we'd love to see old listeners and new friends there. Sign up on Eventbrite (search Digital Planet). And Gareth wants to tell you all about it..
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Series finale, faking data vs synthetic data, and your views on photography
The Gareth and BillCast
In this final episode of the series (we'll be back in the new year) Gareth and Bill muse on the ways generative AI can be used to fake experimental data, the uses of synthetic data, and we pick up the online conversation about 'computational imaging'.
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Computational imaging, data recovery.. and some rapid scheduled disassembly
The Gareth and BillCast
In this episode we reflect on SpaceX's latest mission and OpenAI's apparent implosion, muse on the nature of photography in an age of computational imaging, and discuss how the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope managed to get its data safely back to earth using Raspberry Pi computers.
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eLORAN and GNSS, and the potential tricksiness of GPT-4
The Gareth and BillCast
In this episode Gareth eulogises the radio-based LORAN navigation system, and Bill wonders if GPT-4 is pulling a fast one. Or not. With an accelerated sketch and quite a lot of self-referential wittering.
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Network security in cafes and pubs, and AI safety
The Gareth and BillCast
In this episode Gareth picks up on a survey showing british people worry about wifi security in pubs - but is it just lazy marketing of VPNs? And our take on the UK AI Safety Summit. Plus more input from our esteemed listeners!
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Can You Fix It? Only if they let you...
The Gareth and BillCast
In this episode we discuss cars,tractors, smartphone and laptops, and why the right to repair the stuff you own matters, practically and philosophically. We find time to read out some comments from listeners, while the Gazmotron continues to wreak havoc.
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Darker Skies and Pulsating Lights
The Gareth and BillCast
This week, once you're through the 'sketch', Gareth discusses a novel approach to countering light pollution by making LEDs flicker 150 times per second, and Bill looks forward to this year's Lumiere festival in Durham, England which will feature Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Topology and brings back memories of the Venice Biennale in 2007 (the photo is Gareth and Colin interviewing Rafael)
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Will Robots Think? And Who Needs Pictures?
The Gareth and BillCast
This week Bill reflects on the progress made using transformer networks to integrate language and visual processing with robotic control, particularly in Google DeepMinds RT-2, and whether we're heading for embodied awareness, while Gareth speaks out for the special place well-crafted audio has in the cultural landscape - who needs pictures? And we go purple about the Vesuvius Challenge. (Image of cocktail making robots taken at the Barbican 'AI: More than Human' exhibition in 2019. The Negroni was acceptable.)
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Back again.. in one state or another
The Gareth and BillCast
In this first episide of our second series, Gareth and Bill look at the progress being made in quantum computing, developing systems that use the properties of entangled 'qbits' instead of binary bits to carry out calculations. How can we be quantum-ready?
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Gareth explores an abandoned radar station
The Gareth and BillCast
Gareth found a fascinating site on his recent holiday in Lefkada, and you get to hear about it because he couldn't resist recording his impressions.
info_outlineI've always listened to the radio. It's become more important in these pandemical times.