Speech-generating devices (SGDs), also known as voice output communication aids, are electronic augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems used to supplement or replace speech or writing for individuals with severe speech impairments, enabling them to verbally communicate. SGDs are important for people who have limited means of interacting verbally, as they allow individuals to become active participants in communication interactions. They are particularly helpful for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) but recently have been used for children with predicted speech deficiencies. There are several input and display methods for users of varying abilities to make use of SGDs. Some SGDs have multiple pages of symbols to accommodate a large number of utterances, and thus only a portion of the symbols available are visible at any one time, with the communicator navigating the various pages. Speech-generating devices can produce electronic voice output by using digitized recordings of natural speech or through speech synthesis—which may carry less emotional information but can permit the user to speak novel messages. The content, organization, and updating of the vocabulary on an SGD is influenced by a number of factors, such as the user's needs and the contexts that the device will be used in. The development of techniques to improve the available vocabulary and rate of speech production is an active research area. Vocabulary items should be of high interest to the user, be frequently applicable, have a range of meanings, and be pragmatic in functionality. There are multiple methods of accessing messages on devices: directly or indirectly, or using specialized access devices—although the specific access method will depend on the skills and abilities of the user. SGD output is typically much slower than speech, although rate enhancement strategies can increase the user's rate of output, resulting in enhanced efficiency of communication. The first known SGD was prototyped in the mid-1970s, and rapid progress in hardware and software development has meant that SGD capabilities can now be integrated into devices like smartphones. Notable users of SGDs include Stephen Hawking, Roger Ebert, Tony Proudfoot, and Pete Frates (founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge). Speech-generating systems may be dedicated devices developed solely for AAC, or non-dedicated devices such as computers running additional software to allow them to function as AAC devices. == History == SGDs have their roots in early electronic communication aids. The first such aid was a sip-and-puff typewriter controller named the patient-operated selector mechanism (Naman) prototyped by Reg Maling in the United Kingdom in 1960. POSSUM scanned through a set of symbols on an illuminated display. Researchers at Delft University in the Netherlands created the lightspot-operated typewriter (LOT) in 1970, which made use of small movements of the head to point a small spot of light at a matrix of characters, each equipped with a photoelectric cell. Although it was commercially unsuccessful, the LOT was well received by its users. In 1966, Barry Romich, a freshman engineering student at Case Western Reserve University, and Ed Prentke, an engineer at Highland View Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, formed a partnership, creating the Prentke Romich Company. In 1969, the company produced its first communication device, a typing system based on a discarded Teletype machine. In 1979, Mark Dahmke developed software for a vocal communication aid program using the Computalker CT-1 analog speech synthesizer with a microcomputer. The software utilized phonemes to generate speech, assisting individuals with communication impairments in constructing words and sentences. Dahmke's work contributed to the advancement of assistive technology for people with disabilities. Notably, he designed the "Vocabulary Management System" for Bill Rush, a student with cerebral palsy. This early speech synthesis technology facilitated improved communication for Rush and was featured in a 1980 issue of LIFE Magazine. Dahmke's contributions have influenced the development of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies. During the 1970s and early 1980s, several other companies emerged that have since become prominent manufacturers of SGDs. Toby Churchill founded Toby Churchill Ltd in 1973, after losing his speech following encephalitis. In the US, Dynavox (then known as Sentient Systems Technology) grew out of a student project at Carnegie-Mellon University, created in 1982 to help a young woman with cerebral palsy to communicate. Beginning in the 1980s, improvements in technology led to a greatly increased number, variety, and performance of commercially available communication devices, and a reduction in their size and price. Alternative methods of access such as Target Scanning (also known as eye pointing) calibrate the movement of a user's eyes to direct an SGD to produce the desired speech. Scanning, in which alternatives are presented to the user sequentially, became available on communication devices. Speech output possibilities included both digitized and synthesized speech. Rapid progress in hardware and software development continued, including projects funded by the European Community. The first commercially available dynamic screen speech-generating devices were developed in the 1990s. Software was developed that allowed the computer-based production of communication boards. High-tech devices have continued to become smaller and lighter, while increasing accessibility and capability; communication devices can be accessed using eye-tracking systems, perform as a computer for word-processing and Internet use, and as an environmental control device for independent access to other equipment such as TV, radio and telephones. Stephen Hawking came to be associated with the unique voice of his particular synthesis equipment. Hawking was unable to speak due to a combination of disabilities caused by ALS, and an emergency tracheotomy. In the past 20 or so years SGD have gained popularity amongst young children with speech deficiencies, such as autism, Down syndrome, and predicted brain damage due to surgery. Starting in the early 2000s, specialists saw the benefit of using SGDs not only for adults but for children, as well. Neuro-linguists found that SGDs were just as effective in helping children who were at risk for temporary language deficits after undergoing brain surgery as it is for patients with ALS. In particular, digitized SGDs have been used as communication aids for pediatric patients during the recovery process. == Access methods == There are many methods of accessing messages on devices: directly, indirectly, and with specialized access devices. Direct access methods involve physical contact with the system, by using a keyboard or a touch screen. Users accessing SGDs indirectly and through specialized devices must manipulate an object in order to access the system, such as maneuvering a joystick, head mouse, optical head pointer, light pointer, infrared pointer, or switch access scanner. The specific access method will depend on the skills and abilities of the user. With direct selection a body part, pointer, adapted mouse, joystick, or eye tracking could be used, whereas switch access scanning is often used for indirect selection. Unlike direct selection (e.g., typing on a keyboard, touching a screen), users of Target Scanning can only make selections when the scanning indicator (or cursor) of the electronic device is on the desired choice. Those who are unable to point typically calibrate their eyes to use eye gaze as a way to point and blocking as a way to select desired words and phrases. The speed and pattern of scanning, as well as the way items are selected, are individualized to the physical, visual and cognitive capabilities of the user. == Message construction == Augmentative and alternative communication is typically much slower than speech, with users generally producing 8–10 words per minute. Rate enhancement strategies can increase the user's rate of output to around 12–15 words per minute, and as a result enhance the efficiency of communication. In any given SGD there may be a large number of vocal expressions that facilitate efficient and effective communication, including greetings, expressing desires, and asking questions. Some SGDs have multiple pages of symbols to accommodate a large number of vocal expressions, and thus only a portion of the symbols available are visible at any one time, with the communicator navigating the various pages. Speech-generating devices generally display a set of selections either using a dynamically changing screen, or a fixed display. There are two main options for increasing the rate of communication for an SGD: encoding, and prediction. Encoding permits a user to produce a word, sentence or phrase using only on
Automated Lip Reading
Automated Lip Reading (ALR) is a software technology developed by speech recognition expert Frank Hubner. A video image of a person talking can be analysed by the software. The shapes made by the lips can be examined and then turned into sounds. The sounds are compared to a dictionary to create matches to the words being spoken. The technology was used successfully to analyse silent home movie footage of Adolf Hitler taken by Eva Braun at their Bavarian retreat Berghof. The video, with words, was included in a documentary titled "Hitler's Private World", Revealed Studios, 2006 Source: New Technology catches Hitler off guard
Sunspring
Sunspring is a 2016 experimental science fiction short film entirely written by an artificial intelligence bot using neural networks. It was conceived by BAFTA-nominated filmmaker Oscar Sharp and NYU AI researcher Ross Goodwin and produced by film production company, End Cue along with Allison Friedman and Andrew Swett. It stars Thomas Middleditch, Elisabeth Grey, and Humphrey Ker as three people, namely H, H2, and C, living in a future world and eventually connecting with each other through a love triangle. The script of the film was authored by a recurrent neural network called long short-term memory (LSTM) by an AI bot named Benjamin. Originally made for the Sci-Fi-London film festival's 48hr Challenge, it was released online by technology news website Ars Technica on 9 June 2016. == Premise == Sunspring narrates the story of three people - H (Middleditch), H2 (Grey), and C (Ker) - set in a futuristic world and entangled with murder and love. == Cast == Thomas Middleditch as H Elisabeth Grey as H2 Humphrey Ker as C == Production == Oscar Sharp originally created the film for the 48hr Film Challenge contest of Sci-Fi-London, a film festival which focuses on science fiction. For the challenge, contestants are given a set of prompts (mostly props and lines) that have to appear in a movie they make over the next two days. It eventually contested in the festival and was nominated among the final top ten films Sharp collaborated with his longtime associate Ross Goodwin, an AI researcher in New York University to create the AI bot, which was initially called Jetson. The bot, which later came to call itself Benjamin, wrote the screenplay including stage directions and dialog. The garbled script was then interpreted by Sharp who directed the actors to construe the plot points themselves and enact the play. According to Ars Technica, the final plot turned out to be a tale of romance and murder, set in a dark future world. === Benjamin, the automatic screenwriter === Called the world's first automatic screenwriter, Benjamin is a self-improving LSTM RNN machine intelligence trained on human screenplays conceived by Goodwin and Sharp. It was trained to write the screenplay by feeding it with a corpus of dozens of sci-fi screenplays found online—mostly movies from the 1980s and 90s. == Music == The film contains a song from Brooklyn-based electro-acoustic duo Tiger and Man, with lyrics written by Benjamin using a database of 30,000 folk songs. As well as a score written by composer Andrew Orkin. == Reception == CNet called it "a beautiful, bizarre sci-fi novelty." Critic Amanda Kooser said, "...probably won't start a rush for replacing human screenwriters with machines. Some day, neural networks may get better at imitating the art of coherent storytelling, but we're not there yet. That doesn't mean "Sunspring" isn't entertaining or worthy of viewing. It is. It's a thought experiment come to life, a novelty." As of April 2019, it has surpassed 1 million views on YouTube.
Statistical semantics
In linguistics, statistical semantics applies the methods of statistics to the problem of determining the meaning of words or phrases, ideally through unsupervised learning, to a degree of precision at least sufficient for the purpose of information retrieval. == History == The term statistical semantics was first used by Warren Weaver in his well-known paper on machine translation. He argued that word-sense disambiguation for machine translation should be based on the co-occurrence frequency of the context words near a given target word. The underlying assumption that "a word is characterized by the company it keeps" was advocated by J. R. Firth. This assumption is known in linguistics as the distributional hypothesis. Emile Delavenay defined statistical semantics as the "statistical study of the meanings of words and their frequency and order of recurrence". "Furnas et al. 1983" is frequently cited as a foundational contribution to statistical semantics. An early success in the field was latent semantic analysis. == Applications == Research in statistical semantics has resulted in a wide variety of algorithms that use the distributional hypothesis to discover many aspects of semantics, by applying statistical techniques to large corpora: Measuring the similarity in word meanings Measuring the similarity in word relations Modeling similarity-based generalization Discovering words with a given relation Classifying relations between words Extracting keywords from documents Measuring the cohesiveness of text Discovering the different senses of words Distinguishing the different senses of words Subcognitive aspects of words Distinguishing praise from criticism == Related fields == Statistical semantics focuses on the meanings of common words and the relations between common words, unlike text mining, which tends to focus on whole documents, document collections, or named entities (names of people, places, and organizations). Statistical semantics is a subfield of computational semantics, which is in turn a subfield of computational linguistics and natural language processing. Many of the applications of statistical semantics (listed above) can also be addressed by lexicon-based algorithms, instead of the corpus-based algorithms of statistical semantics. One advantage of corpus-based algorithms is that they are typically not as labour-intensive as lexicon-based algorithms. Another advantage is that they are usually easier to adapt to new languages or noisier new text types from e.g. social media than lexicon-based algorithms are. However, the best performance on an application is often achieved by combining the two approaches.
Combs method
The Combs method is a rule base reduction method of writing fuzzy logic rules described by William E. Combs in 1997. It is designed to prevent combinatorial explosion in fuzzy logic rules. The Combs method takes advantage of the logical equality ( ( p ∧ q ) ⇒ r ) ⟺ ( ( p ⇒ r ) ∨ ( q ⇒ r ) ) {\displaystyle ((p\land q)\Rightarrow r)\iff ((p\Rightarrow r)\lor (q\Rightarrow r))} . == Equality proof == The simplest proof of given equality involves usage of truth tables: == Combinatorial explosion == Suppose we have a fuzzy system that considers N variables at a time, each of which can fit into at least one of S sets. The number of rules necessary to cover all the cases in a traditional fuzzy system is S N {\displaystyle S^{N}} , whereas the Combs method would need only S × N {\displaystyle S\times N} rules. For example, if we have five sets and five variables to consider to produce one output, covering all the cases would require 3125 rules in a traditional system, while the Combs method would require only 25 rules, taming the combinatorial explosion that occurs when more inputs or more sets are added to the system. This article will focus on the Combs method itself. To learn more about the way rules are traditionally formed, see fuzzy logic and fuzzy associative matrix. == Example == Suppose we were designing an artificial personality system that determined how friendly the personality is supposed to be towards a person in a strategic video game. The personality would consider its own fear, trust, and love in the other person. A set of rules in the Combs system might look like this: The table translates to: [IF Fear IS Unafraid THEN Friendship IS Enemies OR IF Fear IS ModerateFear THEN Friendship IS Neutral OR IF Fear IS Afraid THEN Friendship IS GoodFriends ] OR [IF Trust IS Distrusting THEN Friendship IS Enemies OR IF Trust IS ModerateTrust THEN Friendship IS Neutral OR IF Trust IS Trusting THEN Friendship IS GoodFriends] OR [IF Love IS Unloving THEN Friendship IS Enemies OR IF Love IS ModerateLove THEN Friendship IS Neutral OR IF Love IS Loving THEN Friendship IS GoodFriends] In this case, because the table follows a straightforward pattern in the output, it could be rewritten as: Each column of the table maps to the output provided in the last row. To obtain the output of the system, we just average the outputs of each rule for that output. For example, to calculate how much the computer is Enemies with the player, we take the average of how much the computer is Unafraid, Distrusting, and Unloving of the player. When all three averages are obtained, the result can then be defuzzified by any of the traditional means.
Tapingo
Tapingo was an American mobile commerce application that offers advance ordering for pickup and food delivery services for college campuses. The company was acquired by Grubhub in September 2018 for approximately $150 million. Following the acquisition, Tapingo’s campus-ordering functionality was integrated into the Grubhub app (Grubhub Campus Dining) and the Tapingo service was discontinued during 2019. Tapingo is differentiated from other on-demand delivery/logistics companies, such as Waiter.com, Postmates, or DoorDash, by focusing its efforts on serving the college market. Through Tapingo, users can browse menus, place orders, pay for the meal and schedule the pickup or have it delivered. On certain campuses, students are able to use their university's meal dollars to pay for food. In the spring of 2012, Tapingo first launched its services on five campuses (Santa Clara University, Loyola Marymount University, Biola University, the University of Maine, and California Lutheran University), and has since expanded to more than 200 college campuses across the U.S. and Canada, serving 100 markets. To date, Tapingo has received venture funding from Carmel Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Kinzon Capital, DCM Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. In fall 2015, Tapingo announced expansion plans through major partnership deals with national brands like Chipotle Mexican Grill and 7-Eleven, regional restaurants such as Taco Bueno, and global foodservice provider Aramark.
House of Suns
House of Suns is a 2008 science fiction novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. The novel was shortlisted for the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award. == Setting == Approximately six million years in the future, humanity has spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy, which appears devoid of any other organic sentient life. The galaxy is populated by numerous civilizations of humans and posthumans of widely varying levels of development. A civilization of sentient robots known as the Machine People coexists peacefully with humanity. Technologies of the era include anti-gravity, inertia damping, force fields, stellar engineering, and stasis fields. Also of note is the "Absence"—the mysterious disappearance of the Andromeda Galaxy. Large-scale human civilizations almost invariably seem to collapse and disappear within a few millennia (a phenomenon referred to as "turnover"), the limits of sub-lightspeed travel making it too difficult to hold interstellar empires together. Consequently, the most powerful entities in the galaxy are the "Lines"—familial organizations made of cloned "shatterlings". The Lines do not inhabit planets, but instead travel through space, holding reunions after they have performed a "circuit" of the galaxy; something that takes about 200,000 years. House of Suns concerns the Gentian Line, also known as the House of Flowers, composed of Abigail Gentian and her 999 clones (or "shatterlings"), male and female: exactly which of the 1,000 shatterlings is the original Abigail Gentian is unknown. The clones and Abigail travel the Milky Way Galaxy, helping young civilizations, collecting knowledge, and experiencing what the universe has to offer. Members of the Gentian Line are named after flowering plants. == Synopsis == The novel is divided into eight parts, with the first chapter of each part taking the form of a narrative flashback to Abigail Gentian's early life (six million years earlier, in the 31st century), before the cloning and the creation of the Gentian Line. Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the first-person perspective of two shatterlings named Campion and Purslane, alternating between them each chapter. Campion and Purslane are in a relationship, which is frowned upon, even punishable, by the Line. The primary storyline begins as Campion and Purslane are roughly fifty years late to the 32nd Gentian reunion. They take a detour to contact a posthuman known as ‘Ateshga’ in hopes of getting a replacement ship for Campion because his is getting old (several million years old). After being tricked by Ateshga, Campion and Purslane manage to turn the tables on him and leave his planet with a being he had been keeping captive, a golden robot called Hesperus. Hesperus is a member of the "Machine People", an advanced civilization of robots, and supposedly the only non-human sentient society in existence. The two shatterlings hope that the rescue of Hesperus will let them off the hook for their lateness, as returning him to his people (who will be at the reunion as guests of other shatterlings) will put the Gentian Line on good terms with the Machine People. However, before reaching the reunion world, Campion and Purslane encounter an emergency distress signal from Fescue, another Gentian shatterling. There was a vicious attack on the reunion world; an ambush in which the majority of the Gentian Line was wiped out. The identity of the responsible party is unknown, but the attackers used the supposedly long-vanished 'Homunculus' weapons – monstrous spacetime-bending weapons that were created ages ago, but were ordered to be destroyed by another Line. Despite Fescue's warning, Campion and Purslane approach the reunion system to look for survivors. They manage to find the remains of a ship with several Gentian members still alive, and rescue them and the four enemy prisoners they had captured. Hesperus, however, is gravely injured in the process by remaining ambushers. The group escapes and make their way to the Gentian backup meeting planet, Neume, in the hope of re-grouping with any other Gentians who may have survived the ambush. Upon reaching Neume, Campion, Purslane and the other shatterlings they rescued are greeted by the few Gentian survivors of the ambush (numbering only in the forties, compared to the hundreds that existed before the ambush). They also meet two members of the Machine People: Cadence and Cascade, guests of another shatterling. During the next few days, the interrogation of the prisoners commences. Another Gentian, Cyphel, is mysteriously murdered, which fuels the Line's concerns that there is a traitor among them. As a way of punishing Campion for transgressions against the Line, Purslane is made to give up her ship, the Silver Wings of Morning (one of the fastest and most powerful in the Line) to Cadence and Cascade, ostensibly so they can return to the Machine People with news of the ambush, in a bid to gain the Line some assistance. Hesperus, still critically wounded following the rescue of the survivors, is taken to the Neumean "Spirit of the Air", an ancient posthuman machine-intelligence, in the hopes that it will fix him. The Spirit takes Hesperus away and returns him some time later, though apparently still not functioning. The robots Cadence and Cascade make preparations to leave on Purslane's ship. They agree to take him aboard and return him to their people, who they promise may be able to help Hesperus. Purslane accompanies them to her ship, where she must be physically present to give the ship order to transfer control over to the robots. On their way to the bridge, Hesperus suddenly springs to life, grabbing Purslane and hiding her while Cadence and Cascade are whisked along to the bridge. Hersperus quickly explains that Cadence and Cascade are actually planning on hijacking the ship. Bewildered by this sudden change of events, Purslane delays in acting, not sure if she should trust Hesperus, before deciding to ask the ship to detain and eject the robots in the bridge. By then, though, it is too late. Cadence and Cascade hack into the ship's computer, taking it over, and take off from Neume with Hesperus and Purslane still aboard. Campion and several other shatterlings immediately launch a pursuit. Together Hesperus and Purslane find a hideout in a smaller ship in the hold of the Silver Wings of Morning. Using information gained from the other two robots and his own memories, Hesperus (who is now an amalgamation of both Hesperus and the Spirit of the Air) has pieced together what is going on: Cadence and Cascade have discovered that the Line was involved in the accidental extermination of a forgotten earlier race of machine people, dubbed the "First Machines". The Commonality (a confederation of the various Lines), horrified and ashamed of this pointless genocide, erased all knowledge of the event from historical records and their own memories. Unfortunately, Campion, in a previous circuit, unwittingly uncovered information pertaining to the extermination. Hesperus believes that the ambush at the reunion was seeking to destroy this evidence before it could spread, carried out by a shadow Line known as the "House of Suns", tasked with maintaining the conspiracy. Cadence and Cascade, on the other hand, are racing for a wormhole which leads to the Andromeda Galaxy, to where the few survivors of the First Machines are revealed to have retreated. They plan to release the First Machines back into the Milky Way, thus effecting a revenge against the Commonality for the genocide. As Campion and the shatterlings are pursuing Purslane's hijacked ship, transmissions from Neume confirm that a shatterling within their midst, Galingale, is the traitor and a secret member of the House of Suns. The shatterlings open fire on both Galingale's and Purslane's ships, and while they manage to capture Galingale, they are unable to stop Purslane's ship. Unable to get within weapons range, Campion pursues Purslane's ship for sixty thousand light years, during which time he and Purslane, on their separate ships, are suspended in "abeyance", a form of temporal slowdown or stasis. Despite efforts to stop the hijacked ship from reaching the concealed wormhole by local civilisations, the robot Cascade succeeds in opening the "stardam" enclosing the wormhole and travelling through it to the Andromeda Galaxy. On board Silver Wings of Morning, Hesperus reveals to Campion that while he managed to destroy Cadence before they could leave the Neume star system, Cascade survived and he and Cascade had engaged in a marathon battle, several thousand years. Hesperus was ultimately victorious, but Cascade has fused the ship controls before his defeat and they are past the point of no return. Campion, now the only shatterling still in pursuit, enters the wormhole after them and emerges in the Andromeda Galaxy, a place apparently devoid of all sentient life. In his search for Purslane and her ship, he travels to a star enca