Category: Cloud

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Cloud

Generative AI in Education With AI-x-plainer and Amazon PartyRock

A question of AIxplainer with the student's answer and an evaluation and illustration generated by the LLM.

Working as a professor at the St. Pölten University Applied Sciences, I’ve observed the dual impact of generative AI in education. In this article, I’ll discuss how we are adapting teaching methodologies.

The result is the AIxplainer educational tool, which you can freely test and remix through Amazon PartyRock.

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Integrating AI in Education

Traditional coding instruction is becoming less effective as AI tools streamline code creation. However, constructing extensive system architectures and corresponding code predominantly remains a human task.

Thus, we need an educational approach where students engage with AI to address advanced challenges that extend beyond what is typically explained within lectures.

Continue reading “Generative AI in Education With AI-x-plainer and Amazon PartyRock”
Categories
App Development AR / VR Cloud Speech Assistants

How-To: Convert Neural Voice Audio from Amazon Polly (mp3) to Spark AR (m4a)

Finished Spark AR project playing a sound file upon its start. The artificial speech was generated using the Amazon Polly text-to-speech neural voice engine.
Finished Spark AR project playing a sound file upon its start. The artificial speech was generated using the Amazon Polly text-to-speech neural voice engine.

Currently, Facebook’s Spark AR Studio is restrictive with supported audio formats. Unfortunately, only M4A with specific settings is allowed. This short tutorial is a guidance on how to convert artificially generated neural voices (in this case coming from an mp3 file as produced by Amazon Polly) to the m4a format accepted by Spark AR. I’m using the free Audiacity tool, which integrates the open-source FFmpeg plug-in.

Spark AR has the following requirements on audio files:

  • M4A format
  • Mono
  • 44.1 kHz sample rate
  • 16-bit depth

Generating Audio using Text-to-Speech (mp3 / PCM)

Neither Amazon Polly nor the Microsoft Azure Text-to-Speech cognitive service can directly produce an m4a audio file. In its additional settings, Polly offers MP3, OGG, PCM and Speech Marks. MP3 goes up to a sample rate of 24000 Hz, PCM is limited to 16000 Hz.

Continue reading “How-To: Convert Neural Voice Audio from Amazon Polly (mp3) to Spark AR (m4a)”
Categories
Cloud Events Speech Assistants

AWS IMAGINE: Accelerating Transformation in Education

AWS IMAGINE Accelerating transformation in education

As an unexpected catalyst, the COVID-19 pandemic drove rapid change in global education, including improved accessibility for some, affordability, and curricula aligned with job skills needed for the modern world.

Of course, cloud technologies play a fundamental role in the new world of teaching. In the global panel session by AWS, I’ll share insights about:

  • How remote students can solve a real-life wellbeing problem with a working prototype in just 10 days.
  • How learning and retention can be improved through the open-source Voice Learning Alexa skill.
Continue reading “AWS IMAGINE: Accelerating Transformation in Education”
Categories
App Development Artificial Intelligence Cloud

Computer Vision & Photo Description: Really Simple HTML / JavaScript Example

Example overview: specify an image URL and your API key, get a complete image description from an Artificial Intelligence service.

Image classification & content description is incredibly powerful. Cloud-based computer vision services instantly return a JSON-based description of what they see in photos.

However, most examples are quite complex. As a beginning developer with your main knowledge in HTML + JavaScript, the following code is for you. You don’t need to worry about Node.js or native apps. The code runs directly in your browser from your computer.

Continue reading “Computer Vision & Photo Description: Really Simple HTML / JavaScript Example”
Categories
App Development Cloud

Node.js and Cloud NoSQL Databases: Azure Cosmos DB

Azure Cosmos DB Quickstart

Learn how to access a cloud-based NoSQL database from Node.js. The Azure Cosmos DB stores documents (e.g., JSON) and allows scaling for improved performance plus geo-redundancy with one click. The access interface also allows well-known SQL queries.

This guide uses the latest Azure Cosmos DB JavaScript module (released as final version just 17 days ago). Additionally, this article is based on the ES 2017 standard. The async / await syntax makes the code short and readable. In contrast to many other tutorials, this article focuses on the minimum code required to understand the concepts.

The complete source code of this article is available on GitHub.

Continue reading “Node.js and Cloud NoSQL Databases: Azure Cosmos DB”