Vlad's Box

Java

Using the Speex codec in Java

2017-07-182017-07-12

JSpeex is a Java implementation of the Speex codec. By default, Java ships with either no encoding or the venerable G.711 encoders. However, if you want to store a bit of a larger data set, well, you’re out of luck. This is a problem for me, as I wanted to store a lot of spoken data in a little space. Luckily, the Speex codec is right for that, but it wasn’t as easy to get it into my project as I wanted.

Original Content

Making WordPress fly on a single host

2017-07-162017-07-08

WordPress is an awesome tool for blogging. It is extremely feature rich out of the box, is complemented by a…

Quick Bites

Oculus makes news for planning rumoured wireless headset. Join the club.

2017-07-142017-07-13

The unfortunately beleaguered headset maker Facebook Oculus made the news at Bloomberg for a rumoured wireless headset that, according to…

Quick Bites

Hey Google vs OK Google: The screen makes an impact, but the logic is also subtly different

2017-07-132017-07-20

Thanks to the Nokia 6, I am now in possession of a Google Assistant phone. This gave me the perfect…

Quick Bites

TensorFlow SSE 4.1 and other CPU flags: recompiling is easier than it seems

2017-07-12

When running TensorFlow using the official binaries, something that will happen more often now that macOS builds no longer support…

Original Content

Nokia 6 Amazon Edition: A look at the ad-enhanced phone

2017-07-112017-07-11

The Nokia 6: Amazon Edition is here, right in time for Prime Day. Unfortunately, for me, the Prime Day deals…

Analysis

AI turning UI mockups into code? “Over 77% of the time”

2017-07-092017-07-05

Previously, I’ve covered both DNNs and voice assistants. Today, I look at a different use case for DNNs: generating source code from images. A tantalising proposition for sure, but it is ever so slightly hamstrung by the fact that DNNs do not understand what they are doing.

Quick Bites

IBM’s Watson Speech-To-Text censors Dick Van Dyke’s… surname.

2017-07-082017-07-08

IBM’s Watson Speech-to-Text comes with a built-in profanity filter. Unfortunately, Dick Van Dyke, a name that is the bane of profanity filters everywhere, apparently, has ended up on the wrong side of the censoring wall once more.

Quick Bites

The World May Be Headed for a Fragmented ‘Splinternet’

2017-07-07

Davey Alba at Wired muses that we are headed towards a “splinternet”: an internet that is different depending on the country of origin. There are two unfortunate realities to this. First, this is already true, in his own acknowledgement. Second, it is inevitable. What’s worrying isn’t that there are different internets; it’s that there’s a max-censored one.