Best Practice in Voice User Interface Design , speech recognition applications, mobile voice-to-text applications; updates in New Technologies including Social Media
I can’t believe it’s already been a year since TEDxSalford! TEDxSalford took place on a very sunny Saturday (28th January) at the futuristic Lowry building in Media City, Salford.
I was tweeting for most of the event and compiled a list of all my relevant tweets and retweets both from the day and in the build-up to the event in this post. Below is the Best of!
@herbkim @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one. A blog post is in order!
In reply to Herb Kim
30 Jan
“Nothing is impossible.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by Maria Aretoulaki
Maria Aretoulaki
Umut Kose: each of us produces 340 million neutrinos per day that reach the farthest corners of the universe #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Gemma Cameron @ruby_gem
“Do you remember your first time with the Internet?” #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by Maria Aretoulaki
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): old bands prob reform in order to make money to buy their sound recordings off the record labels#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): that’s what record labels are now – content businesses #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): we’ve moved away from BC and AD to BEFORE INTERNET and AFTER INTERNET #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): the current copyright laws are useless #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
2012 can easily be dubbed the year of TEDx for me, as by mid-February I had already attended two TEDx events! First up was TEDxSalford in late January, where I was just a mindblown attendee, and two weeks later it was TEDxManchester where I had the honour to be a speaker!
TEDxManchester took place on Monday 13th February this year at one of the iconic Manchester locations – and my “local” – the Cornerhouse. Among the luminary speakers were people I have always been admiring, such as the radio Goddess Mary Anne Hobbs, and people I have become very close friends with over the years – which has led me to an equal amount of admiration, such as Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden to most of us).
Here are their respective talks at TEDxManchester 2012 for you to get a taste of the atmosphere at the event and of the impact of the ideas and the immediacy of the sentiments circulated!
I spoke about the weird and wonderful world of Voice Recognition (“Voice Recognition FTW!”): from the inaccurate – and far too often funny – simple voice-to-text apps and dictation systems on your smartphones, to the most frustrating automated Call Centres, to the next generation, sophisticated SIRI and everything in-between. I explained why things go wrong and when things can go wonderfully right. The answer is “CONTEXT”; the more you have of it , the more accurate and relevant the interpretation of user intention will be, and the more relevant and impressive the system reaction / reply will be.
@ar3toul4ki 15 Feb RT @global_lingo: Maria Aretoulaki on voice recognition software. Will digital transcription ever be any good? #tedxmcr no, no it won’t
Lynne McCadden @lmccadden 14 Feb
Belated I know but many congrats to @herbkim for a fantastic TEDxMCR yesterday been thinking about some of it all day today !
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester 14 Feb
Here’s to the #TEDxMCR speakers in Session 2 – @daveerasmus @martinsfp @ar3toul4ki @cubicgarden @brendandawes
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester 13 Feb
Thanks to @BandXMedia all today’s #TEDxMCR talks were recorded, will be edited & put online soon #TEDxMCR @s2martin
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
Lynne McCadden @lmccadden 13 Feb
#tedxmcr learning about quarks and leptons from @tarashears making particle physics easy – sort of
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
How to Wreck a Nice Beach @TEDxManchester #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
It’s a bright future if you are an algorithm or infomorph #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
@RichardMichie A little bit of non-human agency can’t hurt… Or can it #TEDxMCH
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
In reply to RichardMichie
13 Feb Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
Infomorphs or a weaver… #TEDxMCR love the idea very cool! They could work with #perceptivemedia yfrog.com/gzeg2jij
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Pettigrew @KingfisherCoach
#TEDxMCR @skeuomorphology challenging ‘necessity is the mother of invention’; cars weren’t invented as a response to a shortage of horses!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Pure information technologies are the first evolutionary aware technologies. They are stochastic… Emerge from randomness #TEDxMCR @weavrs
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Living software ‘bots’ or infomorphs via @weavrs #infomorph #TEDxMCR @skeuomorphology
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Michael Di Paola @MichaelDiPaola
Robots made from programmable gel…where the hell am I? A parallel universe, the future. No. Just at #TEDxMCR listening to Dan O’Hara
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Infomorph, a form that exists just of information @skeuomorphology #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Another type of software agent that exhibits life, @weavrs #infomorph @skeuomorphology #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@pgaval δε πειράζει, θα είναι στο YouTube για πάντα! (Μαμά! )
In reply to Petros Gavalakis
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
Mondays are my favourite days of the week : D
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
Great, great talk by @brendandawes on the value of pursuing ideas, and the ideas they spawn, without necessarily knowing where you’re going
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
from Manchester, Manchester
13 Feb RichardMichie @RichardMichie
Failed art at school? You can still exhibit at #moma @brendandawes #tedxmcr great story love it
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@brendandawes’ cinema redux of Hitchcock’s Vertigo #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jfs95
13 Feb
sphey1 @sphey1
If you make something, give it a name – re: Cinema Redux @brendandawes #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Things that @brendandawes has done with his 3-printer #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jfpn6
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@brendandawes : the creative process is iterative. ( but Battling it against time & cost constraints) #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
RT @CMindsKelly: @brendandawes. The thing we in the room all share is curiosity. That’s why we’re always making new things #TEDxMCR”
13 Feb Martin Bryant @MartinSFP
At #tedxmcr, @cubicgarden explained how @tdobson and @adew saved his life. instagr.am/p/G9BmXRStoc/
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
Ian Forrester: fear the fear #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
‘We are complex & unique organisms And yes, I am still an atheist.’ Ian Forrester, #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Indeed! RT @TonyChurnside: @cubicgarden really touching. Very nicely done!
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@brooksoid any time!
In reply to Matthew Brooks
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
@ar3toul4ki great talk Maria, speech recog in focus at the beeb right now, be interesting to talk once I’ve worked out what our landscape is
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Link to the funny vid played by @ar3toul4ki – Scottish voice recognition problems.. http://youtu.be/sAz_UvnUeuU
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Ευχαριστώ! Το είδες μήπως; RT @pgaval: @ar3toul4ki Καλή επιτυχία!
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
‘When I was lying in bed dying, where were the real people?’ Ian Forrester, #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Tony Churnside @TonyChurnside
Watching @cubicgarden talk about his #brushwithdeath. A very scary time. #TEDxMCR pic.twitter.com/hED5mimw
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@tdobson @cubicgarden is talking about you! : D
In reply to Tim Dobson
13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
so @cubicgarden is talking about it #brushwithdeath when I may or may not have been his flatmate at the time.. #tedxman
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
And @cubicgarden ‘s talk is about… @cubicgarden ! He’s finally gone recursive. #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Tony Churnside @TonyChurnside
@cubicgarden you’re looking good! pic.twitter.com/n8xvkzJB
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
And next on at #TEDxMCR its @ianforrester. With the story of me…
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Hilarious talk on Voice Recognition from Dr Maria Aretoulaki #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
@davemee it’s all about context! /cc @ar3toul4ki
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
In reply to Dave Mee
13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
@davemee @ar3toul4ki “fetish cheese”
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
In reply to Dave Mee
13 Feb Dave Mee @davemee
@tdobson @ar3toul4ki feed her through siri and send me a transcript!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
In reply to Tim Dobson
13 Feb Kate Towey @katiemaymanc
Fascinating talk from Tara Shears on particle physics. ’2012 is year of the Higgs’ #tedxmcr
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Ian Pettigrew @KingfisherCoach
So far at #TEDxMCR we’ve covered pursuing your passion, JDI (and make mistakes), technology, algorithms, and particle physics. I’m happy!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Allie Johns @AllieJohns
I propose bringing back Tomorrow’s World and having Tara Shears present it #tedxmcr
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: oh my Higgs! We’ve seen something! Or have we?? #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jdo56
13 Feb
Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
The goddamn particle explained at #TEDxMCR yfrog.com/obsv5tmj
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: where’s that God-damned Higgs particle?! If we don’t find it, we’ll have to start all over again… #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
“@lmccadden: #tedxmcr learning about quarks and leptons from @tarashears making particle physics easy – sort of”
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: symmetry, simplicity, elegance = beauty of the standard model of particle physics #TEDxMCR
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Up next @TEDxManchester is @TaraShears – tune in live to ow.ly/92eRf #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TEDx video 1 @TEDxManchester: pragmatic chaos to describe fluid things such as culture #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@coralgrainger no worries sweetness : )
In reply to coralgrainger
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TEDx video @TEDxManchester: what we don’t understand, we give a name and a story to #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs you were, nay ARE, awesome! Xx
In reply to maryanne hobbs
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Dan O’Hara @skeuomorphology @TEDxManchester: from random relentless replication (cf. spambots) to guided transformation of chaos #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Kim Willis @KimberleyWillis
Dan O’Hara: technology is not a selection of gadgets but a body of knowledge instagr.am/p/G8sGbrBVY7/ #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Wareing @ianwareing
#tedxmcr @skeuomorphology “Necessity is not the mother of invention. Invention is the mother of necessity”
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
Bloatware… or stimulation of the real on the virtual RT @maanasvarun: Skeumorphism. wait what? #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Dan O’Hara @skeuomorphology @TEDxManchester: the creation of living technology by merging the Arts and Sciences #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs @TEDxManchester: John Peel saving lives again #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs @TEDxManchester: follow your passion! #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jcwpn
13 Feb
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Hi all we’re suggesting #TEDxMCR as the hashtag for the event today as it’s a bit shorter than #TEDxManchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Sorry folks for the livestream #fail. We’re currently on this channel live.. bit.ly/y9kkZa #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@gazshaw cheers!
In reply to Gaz Shaw
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
see you there Mike! It’s been a loooong time! RT @mike_higham: @ar3toul4ki @TEDxManchester Looking forward to it #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@heloukee oh nooo : s
In reply to Helen Keegan
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Excited & honoured to be speaking @TEDxManchester today. My talk “Voice Recognition FTW!” on the present+future of user interfaces #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
See you there Matt! RT @matthbooth: A bit of work then @TEDxManchester. Looking forward to it.
13 Feb Allie Johns @AllieJohns
“@maryannehobbs: interesting day: speaking about passion at @TEDxManchester 1pm.. ” > we can never have enough passion in our lives.
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Will you be my groupie?? RT @technicalfault: @ar3toul4ki Dr Maria at TEDx!
12 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Looking forward to giving #TEDxMCR an insight into the wondrous+often misconstrued world of voice recognition @TEDxManchester tomorrow
12 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
And in other late-breaking news Dr. Maria @Ar3toul4ki will also be taking the stage tomorrow at #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
12 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
A big welcome for our latest speaker @MartinSFP – European Editor @TheNextWeb for #TEDxMCR. Like @MaryAnneHobbs a brave no-slide presenter!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
11 Feb Anna Nachesa @ashalynd
I’ll probably be very evil if I ask during an interview if tail-optimized recursion is possible in C. OTOH, it might be a great icebreaker:)
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
11 Feb @ar3toul4ki
2012 can already be dubbed the TEDx year for me, as it’s only mid-March and I have already attended and even contributed to two TEDx events! First up was TEDxSalford in late January and 2 weeks later it was TEDxManchester!
TEDxSalford took place on a very sunny Saturday (28th January) at the futuristic Lowry building in Media City, Salford.
I was tweeting for most of the event (or when my phone battery was not dead!) and I have compiled below a list of all my relevant tweets and retweets both from the day and in the build-up to the event. I am going to add later on some notes I took while I couldn’t tweet! Hopefully the tweets convey the spirit of TEDxSalford, which can be summarised as follows: @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one .
@herbkim @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one. A blog post is in order!
In reply to Herb Kim
30 Jan @ar3toul4ki
Hello! Great to see you @TEDxSalford ! I’m still buzzing! RT @astrondrew: @ar3toul4ki hello fellow skeptic and tedx person.
28 Jan TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
The Key A CALL TO ACTION #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Unity Node @UnityNode
“WE are the story here… the collaboration itself, not the technology – the people who affect real change.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Unity Node @UnityNode
“Nothing is impossible.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Charlie Buckwell @charliebuck123
Ron Garan – awe inspiring film of lapping earth, sunrise, moonrise, aurora borealis – #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
Oh. My. Eyes!!! I just saw an aurora FROM SPACE! S P A C E #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Ben Davies @_bendavies
Just met an astronaut! He saw 16 sunrises a day. More importantly, introducing the orbital perspective – http://unitynode.org/ #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: people think of something as impossible, just cos it has never been done before. Nothing is impossible! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: man-made borders distract from the fact that we’re all in this together #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: i came back to earth with a commitment to refuse to accept the status quo #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: you don’t have to be in orbit to have a global perspective #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Can’t believe I just saw @Astro_Ron speak @TEDxSalford. I’ve been following his tweets from space and later on Earth for ages! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: creating spontaneous bass wobble down the Manchester canal! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: the Beecham Tower hum revisited #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: how to create bass wobble by clapping your hands in-between S-shaped walls (Mmm gives me some ideas) : D #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Dr. Umut Kose explaining to the audience what neutrinos are #heavyparticlephysics #TEDxSalford #Manchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Umut Kose: each of us produces 340 million neutrinos per day that reach the farthest corners of the universe #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Gemma Cameron @ruby_gem
“Do you remember your first time with the Internet?” #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tom Hingley talking about the Death of Copyright at #TEDxSalford. Watch the live stream now! #TEDx #TED #Manchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley: a bleak future where augmented reality rearranges shop shelves to show you what you OUGHT to want to buy #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): old bands prob reform in order to make money to buy their sound recordings off the record labels#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): that’s what record labels are now – content businesses #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): we’ve moved away from BC and AD to BEFORE INTERNET and AFTER INTERNET #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): the current copyright laws are useless #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: good moms have sticky floors, dirty ovens but happy kids : ) #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tomorrow’s World #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: the triple P bottom line: people, planet and only then profit #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: more inclusion with WE-conomics rather than ME-conomics #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: our love affair with economic growth hasn’t brought us happiness #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: the future is not some place we go to, we have to create it #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: we are bombarded by contradictory messages, we have to be fast and efficient but also worry about our health #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Jordan_Zadeh ah shame. @TEDxSalford is awesome. Hope you still manage to enjoy yourself
In reply to Jordan Ahmadzadeh
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@retsillac well being still alive is very convincing : p
In reply to @CnallA
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: i nearly died 9 times but i didn’t, because of a) PREPARATION and b) BELIEF IN MYSELF #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: my new indigenous friends were crying as i was leaving+said “the sad thing is no one will be around to bury you”#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: when you’re being shot at, you can’t really stop and ask them WHY #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Edward Stafford: I knew I had to keep my sense of humour to keep going, when i actually also knew IT WASN’T FUNNY! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Edward Stafford: i was tweeting+blogging from the middle of the Amazon all the time. Knew Michael Jackson was dead within 2mins #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Nathan Rae @nathanrae
I’m live streaming the #TEDxSalford event at http://www.tedxsalford.com/live Great speeches so far so check it out!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Irene Khan: The law of demand and supply applies to justice as well. DEMAND it and you ll get it (eventually) #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Irene Khan: Violence against women is not a social problem, it’s a human rights problem #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
looking forward to tweeting the awesome speakers ‘ pearls of wisdom #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
RT @TEDxSalford: The official twitter hashtag = #TEDxSalford Less than 1 hour to go! #TEDx #TED #Manchester #mediacityuk #Salford
28 Jan
The sun is shining so well up for a day of enlightenment at @TEDxSalford today – exciting
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@cubicgarden Yes i should be tweeting furiously all day from @TEDxSalford tomorrow!
In reply to Ian Forrester
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Dont miss out on an official NASA astronaut appearance in #Manchester this January only at #TEDxSalford. Register now: http://www.tedxsalford.com/event/registration
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
17 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tickets still available for #TEDx #Salford – check out our speakers lineup: http://www.tedxsalford.com/event/speakers #Manchester #MediaCityUK
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
@ar3toul4ki
That was close! RT @TEDxSalford: Tickets still available for #TEDxSalford http://tedxsalford.com/event/speakers Astronauts, Scientists, Explorers!
For some time now I have been following the furore and the various (counter)arguments surrounding the infamous ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement):
” a multinational treaty for the purpose of establishing international standards for intellectual property rights enforcement”,
one of which relates to “copyright infringement on the Internet”.
Now the protection of intellectual property rights is very noble in itself, but the way it is being put into context, defined, interpreted, pursued and – potentially alas! – enforced is a classic example of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater“. It goes something like this:
“Stealing is bad, so let’s assume that everyone is prone to stealing, and therefore everyone is potentially bad and should be controlled and censored, if not punished“;
a sweeping statement that is stunningly unfounded, extremely dangerous to basic civil liberties, and – as it has already been proven by multiple very reliable sources – ineffective as well. There are several reasons for that, as for instance Prof Michael Geist’s speech at the European Parliament’s “INTA Workshop on ACTA” shows (01.03.2012)
I personally have never felt the need or the inclination to download anything illegally: definitely not a film (torrents sound like far too much work for me – I’d rather use the time to go to the cinema!); but not even a single mp3 (but then again, I have been lucky to be well connected with and trusted by dozens of music producers all over the world who send me links to their own tracks for me to play and promote in my shows / podcasts or gigs). For me, it’s a matter of principle to pay for goods and services anyway, esp. for culture products. And I don’t consider myself to be extra conscientious. I believe I represent the general population.
So even just the thought that – sometime in the very near future – I could suddenly be suspected and even charged of “criminal activity” for hosting on my laptop a track that I have essentially not paid for (as it was given away to me for promotional purposes by the artist themselves!) fills me with terror and visions of a 1984 societal nightmare. It may sound far-fetched and ridiculous right now, but experts from all kinds of different disciplines from Law to Social Psychology think not! ACTA paves the way for such a legal development.
It was in this context that I was recently approached by Pirate Party UK and asked whether I would stand in the upcoming Local Elections in May as their Manchester City Centre Candidate. It took me less than a minute to enthusiastically say YES! Firstly, I had personally known for some time the other two Manchester candidates, Loz Kaye (the Leader of the UK Pirate Party) and Tim Dobson (a former candidate at the 2010 National elections). We have all been attending the same numerous digital events and creative industries meetups all over Manchester (e.g. the various BarCamps and the Social Media Cafe). Secondly, I have been living and working in the Manchester City Centre for more than a decade now, so the area is especially dear to me and its issues of particular relevance of course. Thirdly, I have seen incredible openness in the Pirate Party and its policies, so I felt that I would be free to establish and work on local priorities rather than follow a potentially rigid party whip sitting in London or even in Sweden (where the Pirate Party movement originated).
So I will be standing in the May 2012 Local Elections as the Pirate Party UK Manchester City Centre Candidate. For me it’s not just about copyright, civil liberties and freedom of speech (the foci usually associated with the party); and it’s definitely NOT about impunity for malicious or unintentional illegal downloads! I see it as my chance to put my 20+year love for Manchester into practice, working for practically the only political party I respect. As I write in my first official statement:
I see (Pirate Party UK) as the only party that is adapted to the realities, the needs and challenges of the modern world, and yes that includes a strong technology focus: technology is not just for scientists, engineers, geeks, and hackers. It is an indispensable part of everyday life, including social and data communication, continuous education, as well as participatory democracy. Whoever blissfully closes their eyes to this fact will just be marginalised, let alone ignored when important decisions are taken on their behalf.
I believe it’s crucial that more government data becomes publicly available, more public services are available online, and more people in Manchester get broadband internet access and thus access to this data and those services: especially those people who need it the most: not the young to middle-aged single professionals, but the digitally disabled elderly, and the thousands of foreign students who come to study and live in the city. After all it would help them to help themselves and to contribute to the Manchester life. For me this is all about inclusion, information, understanding, empathy, participation and making the public services and data work for us all and not just for the few and the already privileged and perfectly informed.
Tonight Channel 4 is showing the programme: “Richard Wilson On Hold“, or as it would probably be dubbed “The UK stuck in IVR Hell“.
“From telephone car parking payment systems to supermarket self-service tills, Richard Wilson investigates the rise of automated services across Britain and puts the machines to the test”
Richard Wilson doesn’t like to be on Hold (Copyright Glowfrog Studios)
This will probably put my profession to shame (even if the programme is only about waiting queues), but they would have a point, as there are some horrid voice recognition self-service IVRs out there! Watch it tonight, Monday 16 January 2012, at 8-9pm GMT on Channel 4, and check my update on here once I’ve watched it myself.
Well, 2011 wasn’t bad (see below), so expectations are high for 2012!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
And finally, on both days of the Main Conference (Wed 25 – Thu 26 May), I will be holding the free consultancy one-to-one appointments in the context of the brand new for this year Meet the Consultants Clinic. I am one of the “5 global speech tech experts” available “to discuss your speech tech needs and challenges“. Maybe you need to check out my older blog post on speech recognition (for dummies!) to get an idea of what I will be chatting about with everyone. You may also want to check out my presentation slides from last year and from 2007. Get them from these older blog posts: ““The Eternal Battle Between the VUI Designer and the Customer“ and “Does Your Customer Know What They are Signing off??“. Although you do need to pre-book, these appointments are free for registered conference delegates or Expo visitors, so I’m looking forward to meeting some of you in person!
There’s still time to sign up for the SpeechTEK Europe Conference and Free Entry Expo. Use the following link to register and we’ll see you in London next week! http://www.speechtek.com/europe2011/Registration.aspx
Here’s a quick round-up of what’s happening:
Conference Keynotes by Google‘s Engineering Director, Dave Burke, who tells SpeechTEK Europe about Google’s plans for cloud-based speech recognition, and Professor Alex Waibel who describes and demonstrates how speech technology is helping to overcome language and cultural barriers. Free entry for Expo visitors too.
Learn from over 50 global expert speakers sharing their experiences – both good and bad – and enabling you to build the ultimate multimodal experience for your customers, saving you money and improving your service.
Network with colleagues from all over the world, who have already implemented successful strategies. Companies attending include ABN Amro Bank, Apple, Barclays Bank, Microsoft, Orange, Lloyds Bank, Dell, Cap Gemini and more.
Identify, evaluate, integrate, and optimise the latest speech technology solutions from world-leading providers at SpeechTEK Europe’s Expo.
SpeechTEK Europe features over 50 speakers from around the world, and from a wide range of business environments including Google, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Nuance, Loquendo, Openstream, Voxeo, Belgian Railways, Telecom Italia, Cable & Wireless, and Westpac.
LEARN ABOUT
Business strategies – Speech biometrics – Multichannel applications – Multilingual applications – Multimodal applications – Assistive technologies – Analytics and Measurement – Voice User Interaction design – Speech application development tools and languages – Case studies, panel discussions and more …
UPDATE
SpeechTEK Europe 2011 has come and gone and I’ve got many interesting things to report (as I have been tweeting through my @dialogconnectio Twitter account).
But first, here are the slides for my presentation at the main conference on the outcome of the AVIxD Workshop on Cross-linguistic & Cross-cultural Voice Interaction Design organised by the Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIxD). I only had 12 hours to prepare them – including sleep and London tube commute – so I had to practically keep working on them until shortly before the Session! Still I think the slides capture the breadth and depth of topics discussed or at least touched upon at the Workshop. There are several people now writing up on all these topics and there should be one or more White papers on them very soon (by the end of July we hope!). So the slides did their job after all!
Today saw the launch of the very interdisciplinary (some would say “transdisciplinary” even) FutureEverything Festival (previously Futuresonic) , a long-running and world-renowned annual Conference and Festival of Technology and Innovation, Art and Music running from the 11th to the 14th May in Manchester , UK (@FuturEverything #futr). Apart from the annual May events,
FutureEverything creates year-round Digital Innovation projects that combine creativity, participation and new technologies to deliver elegant business and research solutions. In 2010 we launched the FutureEverything Award, an international prize for artworks, social innovations or software and technology projects that bring the future into the present.
I have always made a point to attend at least one music or art event every year since 2007 (when the Festival was still called Futuresonic) and I have always been particularly interested in the forward-thinking Digital Technologies Conference. So I was over the moon when I was invited to participate in the Conference and informally share my words of wisdom on speech and language technologies for emotional computing. Armed with my complimentary Festival Pass, I am now really looking forward to 2 days (Thu 12 – Fri 13 May 2011) packed with presentations, discussions and debates on: Urban Games and Virtual Identities, Robots and Smart Cities, open data and participatory democracy. community-serving Geeks and Hackers, Open source software and citizen inclusion, and one of my favourites, emotional computing: making human-computer interfaces personable, engaging and persuasive and interaction with them more intuitive and even fun.
The FutureEverything Conference is brainstorming on a massive scale. Combined with all the live Twitter updates and feeds, it is going to have once again viral impact worldwide with the novel, brave and infectious ideas that will be coming out of it and around it. At the same time, the use of dynamic and democratic microblogging will allow massive participation to the Conference by people on both sides of the Atlantic who are not physically present but are still listening and virtually and remotely contributing their feedback and ideas. In fact, the FutureEverything Festival and the Conference are quintessential instantiations of the perfect balance of online – offline, virtual and real, local and remote, one-to-many / many-to-one broadcasting. And I’m right in the middle of this awesome time-space continuum (May 2011 in Manchester UK)!
On Easter Sunday (24 April 2011), I was happy and honoured to take part in the live recording of the latest TECHGRUMPS podcast, Techgrumps 27: Non geeks go raw like sushi (sic!). 80 minutes of whinging about the latest technology trends, as well as the uses of said technology.
My contribution to the grump world is complaining about the social terror of checking your smartphone notifications every 5 minutes, whatever the (social) context, and the de facto new social media exhibitionism regarding all facets of your personal life through the various social media (a stark contrast to my earlier blog posts on the Social Media Scenes in Manchester and London!). Hear me from the 10th to the 32nd minute complain about:
people spending more time updating their current location and taking photos and videos at a gig rather than dancing, singing and enjoying said gig (check the phone screens in the two photos below I took from a Jamiroquai gig earlier this month)
Jamiroquai at MEN Arena Manchester (19 Apr 2011)
Jamiroquai at MEN Arena Manchester (19 Apr 2011)
people checking their Facebook or Twitter notifications on their phone in the middle of a philosophical conversation (usually initiated by the person without a smartphone )
people checking their phone every 5 minutes in the middle of a film at the cinema, just in case someone has texted them or has posted a witticism on Twitter or Facebook (and that’s even when the film is NOT horrible)
people needing to offload very personal information and details on their daily routines every hour of the day on their wide social media audiences, which consist mainly of remote acquaintances rather than close friends (who are usually not remotely interested in said details either)
This excessive notification checking, irrespective of the current social situation, is of course partly due to the availability of the technology itself, i.e. integration of Facebook or Twitter on your phone, internet on-the-go, dedicated notification sounds for texts, Facebook, Twitter, chat etc. So, in all fairness, it is hard not to check your phone when you do get a notification (sound). For all you know, it could be a missed call from a loved one who has been in an accident, or an email confirming that new contract. Nevertheless, it seems that we are all sucked up in a world of instantly available information and an overflow of personal and less personal data that we don’t seem able to escape from. As a result, we are missing the NOW, the experience of the current moment and of the person(s) standing opposite us in real life. This obsessive behaviour can be construed as rude and anti-social by the people in the immediate surroundings not checking their phones, but – more than anything – it indicates a shift in general social conscience and social mores, whereby the remote online acquaintance in the US you have never met in your life is allocated by default the same or more (potential?) value than the close offline friend sitting next to you here and now. So new types of shallow relationships are cropping up. Whether someone has retweeted you is becoming more important than whether someone actually lends an open ear to you at a cafe to discuss your problems over a cup of coffee.
This need to connect and be “approved” by as many people as possible, whether real close friends, Facebook “friends” or Twitter followers you are not even remotely interested in, must have its roots at the basic human need for love, approval and the sense of belonging (in the right groups). Still, it seems that our whole lives are run by this new need for exhibitionism and we are practically controlled indirectly by our ubiquitous and international audience who is or may be reading.
Having suffered the social media notification terror myself when sitting at my laptop, I refuse to use that functionality or indeed the internet on my (admittedly palaeolithic) phone. Even the thought of getting a free smartphone scares me! My time when I’m away from my laptop is my treasured time OFFLINE and I want it to remain that way! I have already spent thousands of invaluable hours chained to my laptop obsessing over emails and notifications in the past 20 years, hours that have been sadly subtracted off MY LIFE! So this is not a rant about Social Media – which often really help in the democratisation of Governments, processes and opinion. This is a rant about Social Media abuse and their infliction onto others as well as onto ourselves.
It sounds very heavy but the whole podcast is actually full of witty jokes and hearty laughter! And there are several more techy topics covered, as you can see on the podcast page: from the “native” IE to Firebug, Wikimedia, LaTeX, and the latest iphone personal information storage scare. Enjoy!
Already on the 4th, I was most honoured and really proud to take part in the photoshoot marking the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) (@IWDphotoshoot and @ManchesterIWD on Twitter). The event was organised by Emma Beck of Lollipop PR (@lollipopprlady) and Naomi Timperley (@naomitimperley) of Social Media Boom and Baby Loves Disco with the aim to “bring together a group of ‘Women Who Impact’ from all walks of life, to launch the IWD programme with a group photograph at Manchester Town Hall.“
On that freezing cold but gloriously sunny Friday, I stood on the steps of Manchester Town Hall for a non-glamorous but still exciting and exhilarating photoshoot. There were a few famous women among us, as it has been reported in the print and online media (such as Manchester Evening News and Inside the M60), but most of us were less-known business women, Academics or Creatives who keep on keeping on! So I felt incredibly honoured to have been invited in the first place and of course to be photographed next to some of the “City’s Top Women”, “inspirational” “luminaries” who “impact”! I guess my long association with automatic speech recognition and voice-enabled IVRs can get me anywhere And having my own consultancy nowadays also got me the baptism of fire in the Business world.
Here is a representative photo of all 50 of us (I’m in the front row, 5th from the right, the one with the beige coat on)
50 of Manchesters Top Women (photo as appeared in “Inside the M60″)
Some of the inspiring women I personally met there were:
Dr Marieke Navin (@lisamarieke), Particle physicist turned science communicator at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) here in Manchester (seen here in the 2nd row, 3rd from the right)
and Gráinne McElroy (@DemWorkingMum), Technology Research Analyst and self-professed geek, who got me in touch with the organisers of the photoshoot (Thank you!) (seen here in the 2nd row, 4th from the right, just behind me and to my left)
Despite the still lingering euphoria however, I agree with Coun Suzanne Richards, Manchester Council’s lead member for women (quoted from M.E.N.):
“We still need more women politicians, we still need more women in the board rooms.“
In fact, I suspect that having more women politicians could be the solution to many of this and other countries’ socio-economic problems!!
Are Call Centres the factories of the 21st Century? (with behind-the-scenes insights from current Call Centre Agents)
bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…2 days ago
@getkanban I met your dad on his UK travels and he recommended your software management tools to me! Say hello to him :) (Maria) 6 days ago
#TEDxMCR @s2martin
#TEDxMCH
see you there Mike! It’s been a loooong time! RT @mike_higham: @ar3toul4ki @TEDxManchester Looking forward to it #TEDxMCR
