Hi All,
In my last post, we ended with the ingenious creation of a marimba-playing robot: Shimon. However, this creation filled its creator with a feeling of working against the talent that the present musicians possess. So, Gil Weinberg brought forth another project of his. He brought forth 'Shimi'.
Shimi is a " smartphone-enabled robotic musical companion that can respond to and enhance your musical experiences" - as was said by its creator. The bot works such that once you begin playing any particular form or type of music, it soaks in that music and finds patterns in it(Machine Learning). It doesn't just stop there, but it plays music whichever is best suitable for that rhythm from the phone library and even dances to the tune with gestures best fit for the song.
And soon, his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence and musical expression is now widely performed by symphonies around the world.
However, soon after his discovery, his innovative skills came into the attention of another musician, Jason Barnes. A guy who unexpectedly pushed Gil beyond enhancing robots and brought him to augmenting humans.
Thus came into being The Skywalker Hand. Truly inspired by Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, this uncommon tech brought what was once a realm of sci-fi, a mile closer to our galaxy. Currently, most prosthetic hands cant even thumbs up or give you a hi-fi, they can only open or grip with all five fingers at once; but the problem was not in the creation, it was in its foundation. These prosthetic limbs work on EMG technology which stands for Electromyography. So essentially, this means that these limbs have two sensors. One at the end of the residual limb which picks up signals as the wearer flexes his muscles and carries these making the wrist and fingers move.
However, its problem is that the electrical signals picked up are very vague ranging from zero to 100%. So, fixing this, what better than ultrasound technology!!
So, ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to capture live images from inside the body, just like in Echo-cardiography. This means that as Jason flexes his muscles to move his imaginary fingers, these images are captured by ultrasound making clear his intention. Then, just use an A.I., make it predict patterns and you have a fully functioning human hand, albeit you have to give it time to move. But a man with missing five fingers would readily give away time to have them back.
So this was Gil Weinberg for you, a musician turned A.I. developer. Coming from a non-engineering background, his visions about bots would be quite distinct and unpredictable compared to someone who was trained to do this. Like, Iron Man, a billionaire in his own right, creating A.I. with a unique mind which would be unpredictable and incomprehensible for even those close to him...
In my last post, we ended with the ingenious creation of a marimba-playing robot: Shimon. However, this creation filled its creator with a feeling of working against the talent that the present musicians possess. So, Gil Weinberg brought forth another project of his. He brought forth 'Shimi'.
 |
| Shimi Image Courtesy - https://gtcmt.gatech.edu/shimi |
Shimi is a " smartphone-enabled robotic musical companion that can respond to and enhance your musical experiences" - as was said by its creator. The bot works such that once you begin playing any particular form or type of music, it soaks in that music and finds patterns in it(Machine Learning). It doesn't just stop there, but it plays music whichever is best suitable for that rhythm from the phone library and even dances to the tune with gestures best fit for the song.
And soon, his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence and musical expression is now widely performed by symphonies around the world.
However, soon after his discovery, his innovative skills came into the attention of another musician, Jason Barnes. A guy who unexpectedly pushed Gil beyond enhancing robots and brought him to augmenting humans.
 |
| Jason Barnes along with Skywalker Hand Image Courtesy - https://gtcmt.gatech.edu/skywalker |
Thus came into being The Skywalker Hand. Truly inspired by Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, this uncommon tech brought what was once a realm of sci-fi, a mile closer to our galaxy. Currently, most prosthetic hands cant even thumbs up or give you a hi-fi, they can only open or grip with all five fingers at once; but the problem was not in the creation, it was in its foundation. These prosthetic limbs work on EMG technology which stands for Electromyography. So essentially, this means that these limbs have two sensors. One at the end of the residual limb which picks up signals as the wearer flexes his muscles and carries these making the wrist and fingers move.
However, its problem is that the electrical signals picked up are very vague ranging from zero to 100%. So, fixing this, what better than ultrasound technology!!
So, ultrasound uses high-frequency sound waves to capture live images from inside the body, just like in Echo-cardiography. This means that as Jason flexes his muscles to move his imaginary fingers, these images are captured by ultrasound making clear his intention. Then, just use an A.I., make it predict patterns and you have a fully functioning human hand, albeit you have to give it time to move. But a man with missing five fingers would readily give away time to have them back.
So this was Gil Weinberg for you, a musician turned A.I. developer. Coming from a non-engineering background, his visions about bots would be quite distinct and unpredictable compared to someone who was trained to do this. Like, Iron Man, a billionaire in his own right, creating A.I. with a unique mind which would be unpredictable and incomprehensible for even those close to him...
@WePeople - signing out for today...
See you on another day with a new engaging topic...farewell.
P.S.:-
All expressions in this post are copyrighted to the author (Hriday Kharpude ©).
P.S.:-
All expressions in this post are copyrighted to the author (Hriday Kharpude ©).
Thanks for informing about such fascinating things ����
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