Iterate Weekly - Issue 72
This week we're looking at a new humanoid robot, Google helps kids read, California is making floating wind turbines, deep fakes for censorship, and Michael Ian Black's "A Better Man"!
Welcome to issue 72 of Iterate Weekly!
Just a reminder that you can always reply to this email or leave a comment on the web version. I read all of them, and I appreciate the feedback, questions, and insights from all of you.
Let’s jump into this week’s stories.
🤖 Tech
Meet Xiaomi’s humanoid robot
We all know that it’s only a matter of time until we each have our own humanoid robot to do all of our bidding for us right?
Xiaomi is hoping to make that reality happen sooner with the release of their new robot called CyberOne.
This robotic companion will weigh 115 lbs. and stand 5’8” high. Maybe you could compare it to a scrawny teenager? Those dimensions may not sound like much from a human perspective, but it’s still a good sized robot to have roaming around your house.
Where things get even more interesting is in its ability to understand the world around it. CyberOne will have a curved OLED face panel to see the world in 3D and two microphones to hear your commands. Its 13 joints should allow it to move in fluid human-like ways.
It will still be a few years until CyberOne is available for purchase. And its potential price tag of $89k - $104k will obviously stand in the way of it becoming a mainstream device. But with all of its smarts and ability to “identify 45 types of emotions from human vocal expressions”, it could be a great tool for therapists of the future.
Would you feel more comfortable sharing your emotions with a robot?
🎓 Education/Productivity
Google helps kids read with voice recognition
If there is any company that can help kids learn to read easier, it might just be Google. Seeing how they do have access to tons of information and have gotten pretty good at surfacing it via the sound of our voice and all, helping children read should be a breeze.
Their Read Along app has been available on Android for a while and is now making its way to a web browser near you.
Free digital storybooks for kids are obviously a good thing. But the secret sauce here is the voice recognition feature (something we know that Google has mastered via its assistant).
When a child is struggling to read, it’s often due to mispronunciations or speech impediments. With the Read Along app, they can speak into a microphone to make sure their reading skills are where they should be. If a word sounds off, it will be marked in red so the child can try again until they get it right.
It’s certainly no substitute for a human teacher, but apps like this can be an excellent supplement for those who are having trouble gaining confidence with their reading. Google says it has helped more than 30 million kids read 120 million stories. It’s available in ten languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, and Urdu.
♻️ Health & Environment
California believes in floating wind turbines
The state of California is embarking on an ambitious initiative to increase power generated by offshore winds along its coast.
With goals to generate as much wind power as all of Europe by the year 2045, it won’t be a simple undertaking. There have only been a few successful attempts at generating meaningful energy from offshore winds on the east coast of the US. California’s plan is a little different.
Floating wind turbines will allow energy to be generated in areas where the water was previously too deep to affix a turbine to the sea floor. If these turbines prove to be effective, it will open up new possibilities all along the coast.
Of course, the development of these turbines is not cheap. For California to hit its climate goals, it’s become a balancing act trying to get short term wins while building long term solutions.
Let’s hope that floating turbines become a normal site along our coasts in the years to come!
🛍 Grab Bag
Censorship via deep fakes
The technology to create deep fakes may have been around for a while now, and yet it’s still creepy every time we see it.
A surprising new use has emerged for this technology, cleaning up the language in our TV and movies. Yep, deep fakes are the perfect way to seamlessly make that actor look like they never dropped that f-bomb.
Lionsgate films had found itself in a predicament regarding the release of its thriller “Fall”. The movie was hoping to achieve a “PG-13” rating, but the censors wouldn’t allow it with scenes of people screaming obscenities while falling to their deaths.
Re-shooting these scenes would prove to be far too costly. How about injecting a little deep fake technology to make it seem like the actors were shouting “fudge” or “shoot” instead? Or in this specific case “freaking” became the new line of choice.
Perhaps the scariest thing is that the actress in question didn’t even realize that those weren’t the lines she actually spoke. Grace Caroline Currey said she couldn’t tell which of her scenes had been redubbed: “As far as I know, every movement my mouth made in that movie, my mouth made.”
Wow, it’s a wild time we live in. How will we know if any of our favorite actors are actually saying their iconic lines anymore?
💬 Quote of the Week
“It doesn’t matter what you’re chasing, when you get there you’re gonna be like, “Oh, is this all? It kind of sucks.””
- Michael Ian Black
📕Content Recommendation
A Better Man
Whether you’re a parent or not, you have to appreciate Michael Ian Black’s “A Better Man: A (Mostly Serious) Letter to My Son”
I recently blew through the audiobook while driving and it has so many great comments on the current state of fatherhood and masculinity in general.
You may know Black from his comedic roles (Wet Hot American Summer is one of my favorites) and this book has plenty of humor. But it’s also really vulnerable, powerful, and insightful. He shares a lot from his complicated upbringing and the book acts as a very public letter to his son as he sets off to college.
Black’s kids attended the elementary school in the next town over from the infamous massacre at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. The book starts with a recounting of that dark day and how it shaped him as a parent
Kudos to Black for tackling such a difficult subject. This book should be required reading for any new parent or anyone interested in breaking free of the gender norms in American society.
Hey! I’m testing out some new polling tools that Substack has recently added. Keep your eyes on this section and please help me get some feedback by taking a second to choose an answer in my poll. Thank you!
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
P.S. - Are you looking for a coach? I’m looking to work with some potential new clients and would love to help you out. If you’d like a free 30-minute consultation chat, feel free to book some time with me here!