3334May 201024y95AP29Ai-pow May 2019LXF249 41
enablethesPibus
ThetwelveLEDsontheReSpeaker
areconnectedoverthePi’sSPIbus.
Thisneedstobeenabledbeforewe
cancommunicateusingit.Run:
$ sudoraspi-config
ThenselectInterfacingOptions>SPI
andselect‘EnableSPI’.
Blinksomeleds
GrabtheReSpeakercodeandinstall
somelow-levelPythondependencies:
$ git clone https://github.com/
respeaker/4mics_hat.git
$ pipinstallspidevgpiozero
Runthedemo‘blinkenlights’with:
$ cd ~/4mics_hat/
$ python pixels_demo.pyhelpus!
Wecouldn’tgettheDirectionof
Arrival(DoA)codefromthemic_array
repoworking.ChangingQueueto queue
inlines 4 and 25 ofmic_array.pywasa
goodstart.Thenthiscode:
$ cd~/mic_array/
$ pythonvad_doa.py
displayeddirectionintheCLI,butdidnot
lightupourLEDs.Anyideas?1 2 3
revisitingtHerespeaker
Open source smart home
users.Inthemeantime,thosemadeofreallystrong
stuffmaywanttoruntheirownDeepSpeechinstance.
Atthebeginningofthistutorial,wementionedthe
Adaptintentparser.Anewintentparser,Padatious–
basedonneuralnetworksandmachinelearningandall
thatjazz–iscurrentlybeingdevelopedbyMycroft.
WhereAdaptfocusesonsmallgroupsofwordsand
triestoextractintentfromthemandtherelationships
betweenthem,Padatiousanalyseswholesentences.
AccordingtoMycroftit’slikelythatPadatiouswill
replaceAdaptonsomeplatforms,presumablyones
withsufficientalgorithmichorsepower.
Unlikeclosedsourceassistants,wecanbe
reasonablysureMycroftisn’tlisteningtousatalltimes.
Moreprecisely,itislisteningatalltimes,butanyaudioit
picksupbeforethewakewordisdiscarded.
Acorollaryofthisisthatwithoutthewakeword,
everythingisdiscarded.Thedefaultenginethatlistens
forthewakewordiscalledPocketSphinx,butan
alternative,Precise,isavailable(seehttp://bit.ly/
lxf249precise^5 ).Preciseismuchmore,uh,accurate
andisbasedondatacollectedfromMycroftuserswho
haveopted-intothedatacollectionmentionedabove.
Atpresent,Preciseisusedonlyasawakeword
detector.That’swhyyoumaybecomesuspiciousthat
Mycroftissoswiftatrespondingto“HeyMycroft”but
all too often fails to make head nor tail of the noises that
come afterward. That said, Precise is already being
used elsewhere. A particularly interesting use case is
Sickweather (www.sickweather.com). The site has
been using it to track coughs and sneezes in public
places, particularly on transport. With reliable data, and
enough of it, the goal is to map and predict outbreaks of
flu and other diseases – a veritable Sickness Forecast,
hence the name. It’s quite bizarre, we think, that a tool
ostensibly focussed so strongly on spoken words is
findinguseinthemuchmoregeneralfieldofhacking
andcroakingnoises.
WetrustMycroftandMozillaandeveryoneelse
workingonthisforthegoodofopensource,butit’s
hardnottobealittlecreeped-outatvoicedatabeing
harvested.Wealreadysharefarmorethanweshould
withtheinternetthroughFacebookandGoogleand
friends.Asvoicebecomesanevermorepopularchoice
forinteractingwiththeInternetandtheThings
connectedtoitinyourhome,surelywewillbesharing
moreandmoresensitiveinformationwiththeservices
theyconnectto.
Thatistroublesomeifdataturnsoutnottobe
sufficientlyanonymised.Andonthatvaguely
despondentnote,we’llsignoffbeforethesmallarmy
ofPicroftmachineswesetupintheLXFTowers
basementgetscaughtupinanawfulfeedbackloop
anddestroysusall.There must be an awful lot of phonemes, glottal stops and pulmonic
consonants in so much audio data.The more we look
at it, the more that
cutesy smile starts
to take on a bit of
an air of Clippy,
the ever-helpful
paperclip.5) https://mycroft.ai/documentation/precise/