» Thoughts

Just Rambling

wee young chua — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 22:19:53 +0000

Hmm. Tweaked the blog abit. Changed the header image. and changed the main url to a new one. The old one is still accessible though. Cheers.

Black Swan

wee young chua — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:06:08 +0000

No amount of observations of white swan can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan can refute that conclusion. – David Hume (1711-76)

Was reading “What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell and came across this quote which I found pretty enlightening.

From my perspective, things are unpredictable, especially human nature. Its also similar in a certain sense to the quote on “What will go wrong will go wrong”. I guess I am the type that will prepare for the existence of the black swan than continue hoping that all swans remain white.

Cheers.

IPad vs the Rock

wee young chua — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:58:03 +0000

Apple Ipad vs Rock

Think I’ll skip the Apple Ipad. i dunt need a bigger iphone. I’ll stick with my Itouch till something better comes out.

Natural Language Processing in Social Robotics – Video

wee young chua — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:38:54 +0000

Based on my previous post,

heres the video..

My verdict is.. its decent.;)

FYP – Natural Langauge Processing in Social Robotics from wee young chua on Vimeo.

Natural Language Processing in Social Robotics

wee young chua — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:38:25 +0000

Sorry guys.. been busy the last few weeks.. especially with my FYP – natural language processing in Social Robotics. But im finally done and later, i’ll upload a video on it.

Continuing from my other post on training-acoustic-model, i have developed a workflow for my FYP.

basically. its on using a sentiment analysis engine to develop emotions realtime and parsing values to text to speech (TTS) system and a machine servo for head expression through serialization.

and here is it.
Overall Work Flow

Himawari: Sunflower Robot

wee young chua — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:22:52 +0000

Taken from cnet,Â Himawari, which means “sunflower” in Japanese, exhibits a lifelike, if slightly eerie, quality when moving slowly. A group of 48 white LEDs in the head twinkle in response to detected movement. Eighty actuators that use shape memory alloy move other parts of the flower for added effect.

Why build a robot plant? Nakayasu has apparently been influenced by the charmingly absurd creations of Dutch artist Theo Jansen, whose skeletal kinetic sculptures also seem slightly alive, but his message seems to be communication.

“That movement of the flower stem and the blossoming towards the sun seems to communicate a message,” Nakayasu writes. “(The robot’s) slow, weak and slender movements interact with human motion, trying to communicate, the same way a sunflower communicates with the morning sun.”

Here’s a video on it:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=paoICVywrRQ

Humanoid with iphone

wee young chua — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:40:30 +0000

The concept looks pretty cool though its looks could be improved. But expressions in iphone screen would be good maybe coupled with text to speech and emotions. Something i could think about. =)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBGA7ARLzPA

hmm. when i do have the time, i’ll definitely develop a humanoid for myself..

On a side note, been busy in the holidays.. and school is starting soon. Time really flies.

Hopefully i make a right choice in the next few days.

Macbook Transformer

wee young chua — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:45:59 +0000

Been slightly busy with projects and stuff but had time to watch the recent transformer. it was not as good as the first one.. but was pretty cool and good.. =)

and well.. found something.. macbook transformers… enjoy! =)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk51XP-KZMg

Wolfram Alpha – computational knowledge engine: The new search?

wee young chua — Sun, 17 May 2009 06:56:30 +0000

Wofram Alpha looks really interesting. Found it on techcrunch. Do find it really useful if the data are accurate. Read the techcrunch above for a more indepth view of Wofram. I tried doing a search on Singapore and got some pretty interesting results. But my name did not get any result. =(

Some stuff that can be used to find on Wolfram Aplha:

- Date (e.g. a birth date) – can get a historical date and events
- Town (e.g. a home town) – e.g. singapore as shown above
- Stocks (e.g. IBM, apple)
- Calculation and Maths formula

pretty cool right?

Robots… big. bigger.. biggest…

wee young chua — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 13:37:50 +0000

Giant Beetle Robot in Japan

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf7Sytl2-EE

With a length of 11m and a width of 9.5m..

PLUS

18m Gundam at Odaiba Island

Courtesy of animenewsnetwork

and a 18m Gundam at Japan’s Odaiba Island in July..

can i built one too?

oh.. latest transformers video looks incredible too.. damn cool.. waiting for it to come out.