CompuCast
Download on the App Store

CompuCast episodes

  • IoT and Environmental Science

    Our feature this week is an interview by Amit Chopra who talked to Gordon Blair on IoT and environmental science.

    Jumps:

    00:10 Intro

    00:32 News

    • 00:32 Brainwave Authentication
    • 02:14 Quiz Questions

      03:18 Interview

      • 03:18 Introduction
      • 03:40 How did you start off working on Distributed Systems?
      • 05:15 What are some of the challenges that face today’s network engineers?
      • 06:07 What is the source of this complexity?
      • 07:18 Interoerpability is a big challenge.
      • 08:00 What would be a system of systems?
      • 09:17 We need these massive systems to address some of the biggest problems of society nowadays.
      • 10:10 Are IoT and cloud computing crucial building blocks in solutions that address these problems?
      • 11:10 Is the problem of IoT the lack of software engineering methodologies designed for it?
      • 12:30 Is security a critical challenge that needs to be addressed?
      • 13:30 What’s the way forward to addressing the problems of trust and security?
      • 14:30 Can you talk a bit about your fellowship?
      • 15:40 Do the scientist you are working with have access to data centres to carry out the simulations?
      • 16:50 What kind of scientists are you working with?
      • 17:17 How do these scientists communicate? How is modeling done?
      • 18:12 Is the project also going to look into the Data Science aspects of data curation?
      • 19:02 How has the field changed in the last thirty years?
      • 19:56 What principles of the field will carry us forward in the next ten-twenty years?
      • 20:40 Is using more declarative languages something that interests you?
      • 21:45 Which of the many projects was the work that gave you the most satisfaction?
      • 22:45 What is computational reflection and what does it mean for adaptation?
      • 24:08 How would you advise younger researchers on approaching problems?
      • 25:00 Interview outro
      • 25:28 Quiz Answers

        29:37 Outro

        Crew for this episode:

        • Chris Banks
        • Stan Manilov
        • Andrew McLeod
        • Amit Chopra
        • Pavlos Petoumenos
        • Hugh Leather
        • Guests:

          • Prof Gordon Blair
          • 31 min
          • Machines of loving grace

            Our feature this week is an interview with Nicholas Hart talked who’s talking to Julie McCann about sensor networks.

            Jumps:

            00:10 Intro

            00:31 News

            • 00:31 Pattern Lock can break in less than 5 attempts
            • 01:37 Transparency and Trust in the Cognitive Era
            • 03:03 Human-like AI
            • 04:22 Interview

              • 04:50 Introduction
              • 05:42 What is the problem with IoT?
              • 06:33 What’s a smart bridge?
              • 08:17 Can we build a sensor network that is snooping-proof?
              • 10:20 Is it practical to build a system that is intrinsically secure in this way?
              • 11:30 Would it be useful or good if we do build them intrinsically secure?
              • 12:35 Are sensors necessarily only passive, or can they be part of an active node?
              • 13:58 Since they can be active does this create the need of distributed software?
              • 15:15 Where will the real mass impact be of this technology?
              • 16:52 What about further in the future?
              • 18:31 What are the genuinely difficult challenges in the networking space?
              • 20:18 Do you think we might need storm forward?
              • 21:21 Are there more advances to be had in the hardware area?
              • 22:36 Is there a next generation of radio pervasiveness to come?
              • 23:56 Would Li-Fi have value in the smart bridge environment?
              • 25:18 More about the field under water project?
              • 27:38 Would vineyards be a real-life application of this?
              • 29:07 How close are we to the idea of a generic sensor moat?
              • 29:51 So the challenge is not a technical one, but a theoretical one?
              • 30:39 What is the question you would ask yourself? What are machines of loving grace?
              • 32:42 The Joke!

                33:16 Outro

                Crew for this episode:

                • Chris Banks
                • Pavlos Petoumenos
                • Stan Manilov
                • Nicholas Hart
                • Dan Mills
                • Guests:

                  • Prof Julie McCann
                  • 34 min
                  • Big data processing and security on distributed systems

                    Happy New Year! Here we are, catching up on our backlog, by publishing our second December episode.

                    In this episode, Stan interviews Prof. Peter Pietzuch on the topic of big data processing and security on distributed systems. Also, we’ll challenge you with our monthly quiz and you’ll witness a stunning performance from Pavlos who confesses of reading a book once.

                    Jumps:

                    00:15 Intro

                    00:43 News

                    • 01:55 Bad year for traditional computing markets
                    • 02:47 Construction of practical quantum computers radically simplified
                    • 03:34 5G is one step closer
                    • 05:38 The Quiz questions

                      06:42 Interview

                      • 06:54 What do you do at Imperial?
                      • 07:43 What are the kinds of problems large internet companies have?
                      • 08:34 Beyond encryption, what needs to be done to protect data on the cloud?
                      • 10:32 What other research challenges lie within usage of Intel SGX?
                      • 12:06 Is Intel SGX a silver bullet, or caution needs to be taken nevertheless?
                      • 13:21 Apart from security, what other problems are you focusing on?
                      • 15:01 What are the challenges with using heterogeneous hardware for a single service?
                      • 16:08 What is your opinion about the supercloud?
                      • 18:04 How does it relate to your research?
                      • 19:18 How do you think cloud computing is going to look like in 5 years?
                      • 20:57 The Quiz answers

                        25:07 Outro

                        Crew for this episode:

                        • Andrew McLeod
                        • Hugh Leather
                        • Pavlos Petoumenos
                        • Rodrigo Caetano Rocha
                        • Stan Manilov
                        • Guests:

                          • Prof. Peter Pietzuch
                          • 26 min
                          • Dart’s Past, Present, and Future

                            Welcome to the first December episode of CompuCast!

                            We have prepared for you a questionable news segment, followed by our main feature. There, Stan interviews Dan Grove and Kasper Lund about the past, present, and future of the Dart programming language. Of course, Compucast wouldn’t be the same without the monthly joke, which you’ll also be able to enjoy in this episode.

                            Jumps:

                            00:12 Intro

                            00:48 News

                            • 00:50 Optical watermarking digital media to curtail illegal copying
                            • 02:25 Snooper’s Chapter is becoming law
                            • 04:04 New computational method to create drugs more efficiently
                            • 05:55 Interview

                              • 06:07 How did you get involved with Dart?
                              • 06:36 Why did you decide we need a new language?
                              • 07:49 What did Dart bring to the table?
                              • 08:36 Why do you think Dart had a problem getting traction with the developer community and how is this problem being solved?
                              • 10:12 Did the language have to change for external adoption? How about the move away from Dartium?
                              • 11:08 What is Dart in 2016? What is the main focus and the ways forwards?
                              • 13:06 Can Dart be used today for end-to-end web and mobile development?
                              • 13:53 What do you think Dart will look like in ten years from now?
                              • 15:50 The Joke

                                Crew for this episode:

                                • Andrew McLeod
                                • Hugh Leather
                                • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                • Stan Manilov
                                • Rodrigo Caetano Rocha
                                • Guests:

                                  • Kasper Lund
                                  • Dan Grove
                                  • 18 min
                                  • Machine Learning for Humans

                                    Welcome to the first November episode of CompuCast!

                                    Our main feature is a very interesting interview with Rebecca Fiebrink from Goldsmiths, University of London. We discuss about how Machine Learning can help humans create Art and better Human-Computer Interfaces.

                                    And as always, we bring you the latest news and a joke which, for once, is not completely terrible.

                                    News:

                                    • Should AIs be able to patent their output?
                                    • 10x more stable qbits
                                    • Recovering visual information from scattered light
                                    • Jumps:

                                      • 00:12 Intro
                                      • 00:49 News
                                      • 03:50 Interview
                                      • 14:40 The Joke
                                      • Crew for this episode:

                                        • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                        • Dan Mills
                                        • Andrew McLeod
                                        • David Morrison
                                        • Stan Manilov
                                        • Guest:

                                          Rebecca Fiebrink

                                          16 min
                                        • Cognitive Integration

                                          The second October Episode of Compucast is here!

                                          In this episode, Nicholas Hart interviews Jose Principe, from the University of Florida, on the Cognitive Integration of Prosthetic Devices. And, of course, we bring you the latest news and our monthly quiz.

                                          Jumps:

                                          • 00:40 News
                                          • 03:43 Quiz questions
                                          • 04:37 Interview
                                            • Introduction
                                            • 05:35 Is it a coincidence that that work on NN became applicable to Computational Neuroscience?
                                            • 06:55 Is NN not used anymore, but more mathematical approaches are? Are they very different?
                                            • 07:31 Is the model you’re doing coming up with a decoding mechanism for all the complicated data and is there understanding involved?
                                            • 08:16 How close do you feel your work is to being usable?
                                            • 10:33 What would be the first kind of application?
                                            • 11:43 The bandwidth problem.
                                            • 11:47 Is maths fundamental to the problem?
                                            • 13:48 Would adding more probes to the brain improve the quality of data?
                                            • 14:59 How does visual data encoding on the nerve work?
                                            • 17:03 How can pulses encoded so much information?
                                            • 18:25 Does this principle of neuro-transmission encoding applies across the animal kingdom?
                                            • 19:03 Where’s the next great big leap of your field going to come?
                                            • 20:02 What is the question I should’ve asked?
                                            • 22:53 Quiz answers
                                            • Crew:

                                              • Hugh Leather
                                              • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                              • Maria Astefanoaei
                                              • Rodrigo Caetano de Oliveira Rocha
                                              • Andrew McLeod
                                              • Nicholas Hart
                                              • Zheng Wang
                                              • Guest:

                                                • Jose Principe
                                                • 28 min
                                                • Supercloud, Time, and Wireless Datacenter

                                                  October has been slow, and we’ve been slow with it. But the wait is over! The first of the October episodes is out!

                                                  This time, Sylvain Frey talks to Hakim Weatherspoon from Cornell University about the supercloud, time synchronization, and the wireless datacenter experiment.

                                                  And as always, we bring you the latest news and a joke no-one asked for.

                                                  Full interview: here.

                                                  News:

                                                  • AI Generated Movie Trailer
                                                  • Partnership of AI
                                                  • Jumps:

                                                    • 00:12 Intro
                                                    • 00:36 News
                                                    • 02:51 Interview
                                                    • 18:48 The Joke
                                                    • Crew for this episode:

                                                      • Hugh Leather
                                                      • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                                      • Maria Astefanoaei
                                                      • Sylvain Frey
                                                      • Andrew McLeod
                                                      • Rodrigo Caetano Rocha
                                                      • Zheng Wang
                                                      • Guest:

                                                        • Hakim Weatherspoon
                                                        • 22 min
                                                        • Robot Wars!

                                                          Welcome to the second September episode of CompuCast!

                                                          This time, we have a very interesting interview with Sethu Vijayakumar from the University of Edinburgh. We talk about Robot Wars, his role as a judge, and his work on Robotics.

                                                          And as always, we bring you the latest news and a joke no-one asked for.

                                                          News:

                                                          • Flying Autonomous Taxies
                                                          • Intel producing ARM processors
                                                          • Facebook publish SharpMask
                                                          • Jumps:

                                                            • 00:12 Intro
                                                            • 00:57 News
                                                            • 03:20 Interview
                                                            • 20:20 Joke
                                                            • Crew for this episode:

                                                              • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                                              • James Owers
                                                              • Hugh Leather
                                                              • Guest:

                                                                • Sethu Vijayakumar
                                                                • 22 min
                                                                • To Go Big, You Have To Think Small

                                                                  Welcome to the first September episode of Compucast!

                                                                  In this episode we bring you the latest news, an exciting quiz, and an interview with Boris Grot, from the University of Edinburgh, about novel architectures for warehouse-scale computers.

                                                                  Jumps:

                                                                  • 00:12 Intro
                                                                  • 01:04 News
                                                                  • 04:03 Quiz Questions
                                                                  • 05:14 Interview
                                                                  • 21:10 Quiz Answers
                                                                  • Crew for this episode:

                                                                    • Pavlos Petoumenos
                                                                    • James Owers
                                                                    • Hugh Leather
                                                                    • Guests:

                                                                      • Boris Grot
                                                                      • 26 min

                                                                      About CompuCast

                                                                      From the publisher's feed

                                                                      CompuCast is a podcast for computer scientists and anyone with a taste for delving deeper into understanding computers and their related technologies.