On September 25, Amazon released 80 new devices, some of which can be found here. Even for a company of its size, that is an impressive number and an even more impressive line-up. However, I think something much more profound...

“From the Docks to the Gate is a story about a simple service that answers only one question, if a given number is prime. The core problem is first solved with a Java class, which is then wrapped into a...

Since OS X 10.7 Java is not (pre-)installed anymore, let’s fix that. As I’m writing this, Java 11.0.4 is the latest version and AdoptOpenJDK is one of the best places to find Prebuilt OpenJDK Binaries. Easy to follow details about how to...

1GHz, single-core CPU 512MB RAM 802.11 b/g/n wireless LAN Bluetooth 4.1 Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Case The Raspberry Pi Zero W V1.1 by far not the most powerful, but my favorite Raspberry Pi board, because it’s so very most and...

It wasn’t Steve Jobs, but former Apple Computer CEO John Sculley, who in his book Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple, introduced us to the Knowledge Navigator, an astoundingly capable virtual assistant. Today, more than thirty years later, smart speakers are trying...

The Servlet 4.0 specification is out and Tomcat 9.0.x does support it. Time to dive into Tomcat 9. [updated on Sep.2.2018] Prerequisite: Java Since OS X 10.7 Java is not (pre-)installed anymore, let’s fix that first. As I’m writing this, Java...

Sometimes you may want the same Tomcat instance to respond to requests for more than just one hostname. For HTTP this can easily be accomplished, by mapping those hostnames to the same IP address, using the tools provided by your...

Adafruit’s HUZZAH32 Feather board is built with the official WROOM32 module: Two CPU cores that can be individually controlled, and the CPU clock frequency is adjustable from 80 MHz to 240 MHz 448 kB of ROM for booting and core functions....

If you have Tomcat installed on your Mac or Linux computer, like I have shown here and here, you may sooner or later want to serve content not only through HTTP, but also securely through HTTPS. Instead of going the...

The idea behind the Vocal-Emotion Lamp is rather simple: to use a small affordable computer that can continually recognize emotion from the human voice and then visualize the result of the analysis, effortlessly and enjoyably. The implementation of this idea uses the small and...

With most modern Android phones, just saying the phrase “OK Google” will launch the Google assistant app, which is capable of answering simple questions, or functioning as a app launcher. Following up with “open g mail” will launch the Gmail...

Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model, in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Serverless computing allows running applications and services, without thinking much about servers, runtime resources, or scaling issues. A very simple serverless...

Cross-Post from my article on VentureBeat.com With the rise of AI, voice, and more generally language-driven technologies — like chatbots, Siri, and Amazon Echo — conversational user interfaces (CUI) have a chance of becoming the next major technology platform after...

“New uses of speech technologies are changing the way people interact with companies, devices, and each other. Speech frees users from keyboards and tiny screens and enables valuable, effective interactions in a variety of contexts.” Clearly focused, SpeechTek 2017 was...

The CI-Conference is the successor of the Mobile Voice Conference, and like its predecessor, organized by Bill Meisel and AVIOS (Applied Voice Input Output Society). The two day conference (1/30-31) ran like clockwork at the Westin in San Jose, had a keynote, two keynote...

The AI World Conference and Expo took place from November 7th to 9th at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco. DIGITAL ASSISTANTS AND BOTS William Meisel, Ph.D., president, TMA Associates, led a 1/2 day seminar and provided insights and analysis...

The AI World Conference and Expo took place from November 7th to 9th at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco. DIGITAL ASSISTANTS AND BOTS William Meisel, Ph.D., president, TMA Associates, led a 1/2 day seminar and provided insights and analysis...

Hosting a skill for the Amazon Alexa platform can be more or less involved, depending on the implementation language and hosting platform you pick. If you have some experience with the Java-Servlet life-cycle, then implementing a skill in Java, using...

Originally, an iPod connected to your Mac, would show up in the Spotify app, allowing you to copy songs to the device and enjoy them later, when untethered. Not anymore. Fortunately, the analog loophole still exists; but admittedly, it’s a very...

The path to an acceptable Conversational User Interface is heavily mined and booby-trapped. Let’s not fall into the IVR trap, but create a humanized and personalized user experience. [IVR – Interactive voice response is a technology that allows a computer...

Here are the steps to update your Nexus 6P to Android 7 (final) release. Step 1. Install Android Studio Download and install Android Studio from here. If you think you already have everything you need, at least verify your adb...

If experimenting with the Amazon Echo / Alexa Skill Kit or running a so-called Skill in production, you generally have two choices: AWS Lambda functions on AWS Lambda (a service offering by Amazon Web Services) Hosting the Web service yourself....

It all began back in 1990, when Hugh Loebner initiated a contest, designed to implement the Turing Test. The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence, where judges decide, which chatbot is the most human-like. The format of...

The Applied Voice Input Output Society (AVIOS) and TMA Associates organize the annual Mobile Voice Conference, which this year took place at the Westin in San Jose, California on April 11 and 12. Recognizing that speech recognition, speech synthesis, as well as language interpretation...

If you want to add none trivial speech output to your application, no matter if it’s a desktop, web, or mobile app, you need to find a way to convert text into speech (TTS) and eventually provide it in a...