The Gareth and Billcast

Jul 12 2024 100 ep. 10 mins 81
The Gareth and Billcast Podcast artwork

The Gareth and Billcast (and also old archive from Bill, including the podcasts made for the Cambridge Film Festival from 2006 onwards)

  Technology  Society & Culture
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The End of the Cast Show

Jul 12 2024 17 mins  
And that's a wrap.. Gareth and Bill wind up the GBCast with a conversation about generative reality recorded at the Digital Planet meetup that took place in March, with special guest Ghislaine Boddington. Thanks for all the downloads, and we both look forward to sharing time together elsewhere on the interwebs.

Getting the Gang Back Together

Feb 26 2024 4 mins  
To celebrate/commemorate a year since the last World Service broadcast of Digital Planet Gareth, Bill, Ghislaine, Angelica (online) and Ania are meeting up in a wine bar in central London on the evening of March 28 and we'd love to see old listeners and new friends there. Sign up on Eventbrite (search Digital Planet). And Gareth wants to tell you all about it..

Series finale, faking data vs synthetic data, and your views on photography

Nov 26 2023 33 mins  
In this final episode of the series (we'll be back in the new year) Gareth and Bill muse on the ways generative AI can be used to fake experimental data, the uses of synthetic data, and we pick up the online conversation about 'computational imaging'.

Computational imaging, data recovery.. and some rapid scheduled disassembly

Nov 19 2023 30 mins  
In this episode we reflect on SpaceX's latest mission and OpenAI's apparent implosion, muse on the nature of photography in an age of computational imaging, and discuss how the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope managed to get its data safely back to earth using Raspberry Pi computers.

eLORAN and GNSS, and the potential tricksiness of GPT-4

Nov 12 2023 30 mins  
In this episode Gareth eulogises the radio-based LORAN navigation system, and Bill wonders if GPT-4 is pulling a fast one. Or not. With an accelerated sketch and quite a lot of self-referential wittering.

Network security in cafes and pubs, and AI safety

Nov 05 2023 25 mins  
In this episode Gareth picks up on a survey showing british people worry about wifi security in pubs - but is it just lazy marketing of VPNs? And our take on the UK AI Safety Summit. Plus more input from our esteemed listeners!

Can You Fix It? Only if they let you...

Oct 29 2023 29 mins  
In this episode we discuss cars,tractors, smartphone and laptops, and why the right to repair the stuff you own matters, practically and philosophically. We find time to read out some comments from listeners, while the Gazmotron continues to wreak havoc.

Darker Skies and Pulsating Lights

Oct 22 2023 24 mins  
This week, once you're through the 'sketch', Gareth discusses a novel approach to countering light pollution by making LEDs flicker 150 times per second, and Bill looks forward to this year's Lumiere festival in Durham, England which will feature Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Topology and brings back memories of the Venice Biennale in 2007 (the photo is Gareth and Colin interviewing

Will Robots Think? And Who Needs Pictures?

Oct 16 2023 25 mins  
This week Bill reflects on the progress made using transformer networks to integrate language and visual processing with robotic control, particularly in Google DeepMinds RT-2, and whether we're heading for embodied awareness, while Gareth speaks out for the special place well-crafted audio has in the cultural landscape - who needs pictures? And we go purple about the Vesuvius Chal

Back again.. in one state or another

Oct 08 2023 22 mins  
In this first episide of our second series, Gareth and Bill look at the progress being made in quantum computing, developing systems that use the properties of entangled 'qbits' instead of binary bits to carry out calculations. How can we be quantum-ready?