This week we went to South By Southwest’s (SXSW—or as locals call it, “Southby”) trade show and scoped out new AI and ML tech, and here are some interesting, strange, and helpful AI and ML applications we found:
You Play Those Notes so Perfectly
After Yamaha Yoo’s booth director convinced a shy Indian boy to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the keyboard yesterday, we saw an AI duet come to life. First the boy played his piece solo while the AI read his style. Then he played the piece again, and the AI accompanied him, predicting the appropriate tempo. But this is just the beginning of this AI’s potential. The aim is to allow piano players to play any piece of music and have a full orchestra accompany them.
While our video didn’t quite turn out, here’s another one that gives you a peek into how it works:
Is My “About Page” that Bad?
We met up with Per Damgaard Husted, the Danish CEO and founder of Canecto, and he walked us through how his web analytics tool (which uses AI and ML) reviews your website content to see what words work to convert your site visitors. As this tool monitors your site’s web traffic, it can identify what helps your business goals, and what doesn’t. He chortled while he told us that the analytics for his site says that people are less likely to sign up for services when they read his boring profile, which means he needs to spruce it up. The tool sends you succinct daily insight reports, weekly recommendations reports, and specific content improvements by page to improve conversions. And they have a free version that we are definitely going to try.
Side Project Gone Startup
Samsung’s C-Lab takes their engineers’ free-time side projects and turns them into new products. A couple of them were at SXSW this year. One, called Toonsquare, creates personalized cartoons. First the AI converts your selfie into a cartoon. Then it takes sentences you type in and interprets the sentiment, which in turn changes the cartoon character’s positions and expressions. You can even create comic strips by stringing several together. One person pointed out that this could be a great way for autistic kids to express themselves.
The first third of this video shows you how it works, but we recommend turning off the music . . . it gets a little repetitive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLxE4tdVxVY
Unique of the Week: A Bulbous Panda Raps for You
Just answer a few questions, and this AI will take that information and create a personalized rap for you. While the rap is subpar at times, the bulbous panda that delivers that rap will remain unforgettable. Check it out in the background of this video here: