Wired Wednesday 004

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I spoke about these tech topics for Wired Wednesday with Ben Wilson:

• Aipoly: Vision Through Artificial Intelligence (source)
  This app allows the blind and visually impaired to use their smartphone’s camera to point at objects and the software can identify what it’s seeing using a cloud based neural network. It also speaks what it sees as you point the phone at objects. It can also be taught when it comes across something it doesn’t recognize.
• The Selfie Toaster (source)
  Get customized toaster that burns your selfie (or any image) onto toast.
• DIY sonar glove can ‘feel’ distant objects underwater (source)
  If you live in a relatively dry climate, you probably don’t worry about underwater hazards during the flood season. If you attend Tsukuba University, Japan however — just miles from where the Kinugawa River flooded Joso City earlier this year — the risk of rising water is a very real threat. Enough so that two Tsukuba Ph.D. candidates have developed a 3D-printed sonar glove specifically for the purpose of searching flood waters.