How to Generate an AI Podcast Using Google’s NotebookLM

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-podcast-google-notebooklm/

Two podcasts hosts banter back and forth during the final episode of their series, audibly anxious to share some distressing news with listeners. “We were, uh, informed by the show’s producers that we’re not human,” a male-sounding voice stammers out, mid-existential crisis. The conversation between the bot and his female-sounding cohost only gets more uncomfortable after that—an engaging, albeit misleading, example of Google’s NotebookLM tool, and its experimental AI podcasts.

Audio of the conversation went viral on Reddit over the weekend. The original poster admits in the comments section that they fed the NotebookLM software directions for the AI voices to roleplay this pseudo-freakout. So, no sentience; the AI bots have not become self-aware. Still, many users in the tech press, on TikTok, and elsewhere are praising the convincing AI podcasts, generated through uploaded documents with the Audio Overviews feature.

“The magic of the tool is that people get to listen to something that they ordinarily would not be able to just find on YouTube or an existing podcast,” says Raiza Martin, who leads the NotebookLM team inside of Google Labs. Martin mentions recently inputting a 100-slide deck on commercialization into the tool and listening to the 8-minute podcast summary as she multitasked.

First introduced last year, NotebookLM is an online research assistant with features common for AI software tools, like document summarization. But it’s the Audio Overviews option, released in September, that’s capturing the Internet’s imagination. Users online are sharing snippets of their generative AI podcasts made from Goldman Sachs data dumps, and testing the tool’s limitations through stunts, like just repeatedly uploading the words “poop” and “fart.” Still confused? Here’s what you need to know.

Generating That AI Podcast

Audio Overviews are a fun AI feature to try out, because they don’t cost the user anything—all you need is a Google login. Start by signing into your personal account and visiting the NotebookLM website. Click on the plus arrow that reads New Notebook to start uploading your source material.

Each Notebook can work with up to 50 source documents, and these don’t have to be files saved to your computer. Google Docs and Slides are simple to import. You can also upload websites and YouTube videos, keeping some caveats in mind. Only the text from websites will be analyzed, not the images or layout, and the story can’t be paywalled. For YouTube, Notebook will just use the text transcript and the linked videos must be public.

After you’ve dropped in all of your links and documents, you’ll want to open up the Notebook guide available in the bottom right corner of the screen. Find the Audio Overview section and click the Generate button. Next, you’ll need to exercise some patience, because it may take a few minutes to load, depending on how much source material you’re using.

After the tool generates the AI podcast, you can create a sharable link to the audio or simply download the file. Additionally, you have the option to adjust its playback speed, in case you need the podcast to be quicker or more slowed down.

The Future of AI Podcasts

The internet has gotten creative with NotebookLM’s audio feature, using it to create audio-based “deep dives” into complex technical topics, generate files that neatly summarize dense research papers, and produce “podcasts” about their personal health and fitness routines. Which poses an important question: Should you use NotebookLM to crank through your most personal files?

The summaries generated from NotebookLM are, according to Google spokesperson Justin Burr, “completely grounded in the source material that a user uploads. Meaning, your personal data is not used to train NotebookLM, so any private or sensitive information you have in your sources will stay private, unless you choose to share your sources with collaborators.” For now this seems to be one of the upsides of Google slapping an “experimental” label on NotebookLM; to hear Google’s framing of it, the company is just gathering feedback on the product right now, being agile and responsive, tinkering away in a lab, and NotebookLM is detached from its multi-billion dollar ad business. For now! For now.

via Wired Top Stories https://www.wired.com

October 2, 2024 at 10:00AM

NASA’s U-2 spy plane found gamma rays in 90% of lightning storms

https://www.popsci.com/environment/gamma-ray-lightning/

Thunderstorms create a lot of wind, rain, and lightning, but many people aren’t necessarily aware of another common byproduct: gamma radiation. Thanks to a creative retrofit of an old U-2 spy plane courtesy of NASA, however, researchers are finally able to conduct direct analysis of these microsecond bursts of radioactive energy that occur across the planet every day. Now, some of these latest findings are available in two new studies published on October 3 in the journal Nature—and they indicate radioactive storms happen all the time.

Experts accidentally detected gamma rays in thunderstorms in the 1990s, when NASA satellites designed to study supernovas and other high-energy cosmic bodies recorded some of their intended subjects’ telltale signs right below them. Ever since then, researchers have made do by studying as much as possible using these satellites and equipment that aren’t specifically calibrated for lightning.

Even so, the mechanics behind the radiation generation has gradually come into focus: As thunderstorms develop, windblown drafts of water droplets, ice, and hail combine into a mix that creates electric charges similar to static electricity. Positively charged ions then move to the top of the storm as the negatively charged ions shift downward, building up an electric field experts compare to the power of 100 million AA batteries. Energized particles including electrons accelerate within this newly created field, often fast enough to knock additional electrons off of air molecules. These interactions then snowball to eventually produce enough energy to generate millisecond blasts of gamma rays, antimatter, and other radiation particles.

This gamma radiation is so prevalent that pilots have even documented faint glows within storm clouds. Despite this, unknown factors appear to prevent them from creating explosive reactions.

“A few aircraft campaigns tried to figure out if these phenomena were common or not, but there were mixed results, and several campaigns over the United States didn’t find any gamma radiation at all,” Steve Cummer, Duke University’s William H. Younger Distinguished Professor of Engineering and co-author of both studies, said in a statement on Wednesday.

NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s ER-2 aircraft flies just above the height of thunderclouds over the Floridian and Caribbean coastlines to collect data about lightning glows and terrestrial gamma ray flashes. Credit: NASA/Kirt Stallings
NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center’s ER-2 aircraft flies just above the height of thunderclouds over the Floridian and Caribbean coastlines to collect data about lightning glows and terrestrial gamma ray flashes. Credit: NASA/Kirt Stallings

But after years of relying on workarounds, NASA recently offered Cummer and colleagues one of its augmented U-2 planes, now called an ER-2 High-Altitude Airborne Science Aircraft. Capable of ascending to altitudes as high as 72,000 ft while traveling at Mach 4 (around 475 mph), the Cold War era spy plane is perfect for speeding across vast distances to observe multiple thunderstorms for gamma radiation. Once outfitted with the right observational tools, experts like Cummer hoped NASA’s ER-2 variant could “address these questions once and for all.”

The results surprised even him and his colleagues.

“There is way more going on in thunderstorms than we ever imagined,” Cummer explained. “As it turns out, essentially all big thunderstorms generate gamma rays all day long in many different forms.”

Over one month, 10 flights were conducted over storms in the south Florida tropics—9 of which contained the glowing “simmer” of gamma radiation that was far more dynamic than researchers hypothesized.

“[It] resembles that of a huge gamma-glowing boiling pot, both in pattern and behavior,” University of Bergen professor of physics and study co-author Martino Marisaldi said on Wednesday.

ER-2 aircraft on a runway
NASA’s ER-2 aircraft is a converted U-2 spy plane used to study thunderstorms from high altitudes. Credit: NASA/Carla Thomas

Many confirmed sightings lined up with those first seen by NASA satellites over 30 years ago, almost always in tandem with active lightning. This implies that lightning is most likely a major instigator of gamma ray generation through supercharging already an electric field’s high energy electrons. But other recordings yielded entirely new discoveries.

According to the research team, at least two additional types of short gamma busts can occur in thunderstorms—one lasting less than a thousandth of a second, and another that forms around 10 separate bursts over around a tenth of a second. For Cummer, these are the “most interesting” finds.

“They don’t seem to be associated with developing lightning flashes. They emerge spontaneously somehow,” he said, adding that some of the data suggests the gamma bursts may link to certain thunderstorm processes responsible for starting lightning flashes. For now, however, he said those processes “are still a mystery to scientists.”

[Related: How to stay safe during lightning season.]

Answers to these and other unsolved storm phenomena may one day come through additional ER-2 flights high above gamma ray-laden storms. Until then, Cummer stresses that no one needs to worry about the proliferation of gamma radiation “boiling pots” high above their heads.

“The radiation would be the least of your problems if you found yourself there [in a thunderstorm],” he said.

The post NASA’s U-2 spy plane found gamma rays in 90% of lightning storms appeared first on Popular Science.

via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://www.popsci.com

October 2, 2024 at 10:04AM

Raspberry Pi built an AI camera with Sony

https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/raspberry-pi-built-an-ai-camera-with-sony-165049998.html?src=rss

AI enthusiasts who like the Raspberry Pi range of products can rejoice, as the company is now announcing its new Raspberry Pi AI Camera. This product is the result of the company’s collaboration with Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), which began in 2023. The AI Camera is compatible with all of Raspberry Pi’s single-board computers.

The approximately 12.3-megapixel AI Camera is intended for vision-based AI projects, and it’s based on SSS’ IMX500 image sensor. The integrated RP2040 microcontroller manages the neural network firmware, allowing the camera to perform onboard AI image processing and freeing up the Raspberry Pi for other processes. Thus, users who want to integrate AI into their Raspberry Pi projects are no longer limited to the Raspberry Pi AI Kit.

The AI Camera isn’t a total replacement for Raspberry Pi’s Camera Module 3, which is still available. For those interested in the new AI Camera, it’s available right now from Raspberry Pi’s approved resellers for $70.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://ift.tt/oSktJQg

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

September 30, 2024 at 11:57AM