a writer's notebook
Nuclear battery efficiency boosted 8000 times for decades-long power
“a nuclear battery with unprecedented efficiency: 8,000 times more efficient. The battery developed by the research team at China’s Soochow University harnesses the energy of radioactive decay, a process associated with nuclear waste.”
September 20, 2024 at 11:03AM
Comments closedWhat grabbed me here was the accidental voice reconstruction.
The project group used machine learning voice changing software, off the shelf, made for streamers.
The scratches and taps on the metal were transformed by the proto-AI into fragments of voice: burbles and syllables that sound something like a person speaking, but not quite. You strain to hear.
(I didn’t ask but I got the impression that the group didn’t originally intend for this to be part of their project, even though it was part of their demo by the time I spoke with them. That’s what you get from working directly with material.)
And this is something new:
Where does the voice come from?
Novelty in the signal.
This is essentially Electronic Voice Phenomenon.
Within ghost hunting and parapsychology, electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices. Parapsychologist Konstantīns Raudive, who popularized the idea in the 1970s, described EVP as typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.[1]
Enthusiasts consider EVP to be a form of paranormal phenomenon often found in recordings with static or other background noise. Scientists regard EVP as a form of auditory pareidolia (interpreting random sounds as voices in one’s own language) and a pseudoscience promulgated by popular culture.[2][3] Prosaic explanations for EVP include apophenia (perceiving patterns in random information), equipment artifacts, and hoaxes
Those babbling voices from the sheet metal are not noise in the signal. They’re the point. Sources of creation are rare and here’s a new one!
What would happen if we listened to the voices?
Old radio in new graveyards.
One CommentI rather like the look of this peculiar thing.
It’s a handheld AI assistant that promises to be useful by tying into many of your existing services and using them for you through a voice interface. I tend to view most AI objects as toys, but this weirdly appeals to me. It’s “cheap,” at least compared to the Humane AI pin, and somehow subscription-free, for use over WiFi or 4G if you put a SIM card in it.
As cute as it looks – Danish outfit called Teenage Engineering is responsible for the design – it promises use as a tool. The push-to-talk side button, the physical scroll wheel – these are all signals of actual tool use. Whether the machine fulfils the clever design signals, who knows. But I look forward to finding out. The notion of an AI kit with access to knowledge and policed access to everyday services has a utilitarian appeal.
A hand terminal. “Box” from STAR COPS. An easily pocketable puck that extends a field of action at a distance.
Obviously this comes from a place of disappointment with Siri and hallucinating AI chatbots with less charm than Amazon descriptions.
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