As it’s Easter, here are some bite-sized treats for you! The night will feature, in no particular order:
Owen Bennett: How to Use Natural Language Generation to Make Your Computer Tell You Stories
The mysterious and illogical beast that is the English language is not easily caged in silicon, but for the last few months I’ve been trying to do just that. With the quest of getting my computer to write sensible sentences, I began a journey through the land of Java, bringing back a Rosetta Stone called “SimpleNLG” with which I could translate computerese to legible, if somewhat sub-Shakespearean, prose.
I’ll be showing how to use SimpleNLG’s natural language generator (which I ported to ActionScript) and then, time willing, we’ll take a look at how to make your computer tell you stories.
Twitter: @jokigenki
Matt Barringer: Data Visualisation in JavaScript
What is it like to work in a Newsroom as a one-man multimedia band? I’ll show some recent examples of data visualisation (or bouncy graphs in my language) that I have launched for cnn.com, dive into some of the code (JavaScript/jQuery/CSS/HTML) and try to explain the thought process behind them.
Matt is the Multimedia Designer for CNN International, working directly with the Editorial team to help make their stories visually more interesting, from illustrations and infographics to data visualisation and interactive experiences (with a sprinkling of video, 3D and photography thrown in).
Twitter: @eskimomatt
Paul Hayes: The Making of Plug-in Media’s OK Go Interactive Music Video
Thrown out of time after an ill-fated lab experiment in 1904, Paul has had trouble adjusting to this future world. However after discovering the wonders of computational engines, he’s finally managed to find some solace at the very epicenter of these turbulent times.
Paul will be discussing the fabrication of an interactive piece of Children’s entertainment called “Ok GO Colors”, produced for the televisual puppetry company Sesame Workshop by Plug-in Media. It’s a bit like a zoetrope, but delivered over electrical cable connected to the googleplex.
He will also be discussing the woeful lack of on-street shoe shines, given the abundance of poverty-stricken urchins.
Twitter: @paul_hayes
Tickets available from: http://dotbrighton11apr2012.
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