Here’s recorded video of last week’s event, the first in a collaborative series by The Conversation and Improbable Research. The goal in these: Two researchers, in different fields, explore each other’s worlds a little bit. “(Improbable) Conversation: Physics and Psychology of Cats“, with physicist (and Ig Nobel Prize winner, for exploring the question “Can a Cat Be […]
Microsoft – the company that created ‘Clippit’ (a.k.a. ‘Clippy’) the conversational paperclip, is continuing its research into non-human communication – with a project that encourages talking with plants. “If plants could talk to us, what would they say? Equally important how might they respond to us if we could converse with them?” – asked a […]
Conversational Grunts cause serious problems for automatic voice-transcribing algorithms. In fact, as late as year 2000, experts were writing : “… no satisfactory scheme for transcribing these items exists.” The quote is from Nigel Ward, who is currently professor of computer science at The university of Texas at El Paso. The professor has been analysing, […]
Is this a pair of computer programs reacting to, and seemingly conversing with, each other? Or is it merely something concocted to appear to be that? And does it matter which is the case? [HT Jan Chiles] BONUS: More of same: BONUS: Alexis Madrigal’s “The Only Thing Weirder Than a Telemarketing Robot“
These clips by UK comedian / journalist Dominic John Romulus ‘Dom’ Joly might suggest, to some, the question : “Why do people say where they are during mobile phone calls?” For answers, or at least steps towards answers, see a key paper in Environment and Planning D: Society & Space, volume 19(4) pages 485-504, by […]
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher‘s masterful way of handling interruptions inspired one psychologist to study, intently, how she did it. As this scholar communicated his findings to the public, other scholars, with different views, interrupted him – and he them. Geoffrey Beattie [pictured here] is now a professorial research fellow of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester. […]