Good listeners

Many thanks to those who attended my Loving the Machine reading at Good Day Books in Tokyo recently. I was honored to participate in their Booknotes lecture series - it has hosted such old Japan hands as Donald Keene, Donald Richie and Edward Seidensticker as well as many others. To the right is Good Day's Steve Kott, laughing at the prospect of being replaced by a robot in the future.

Meanwhile, I have an article on how to make robots better listeners in this month's Scientific American. Kyoto University Professor Hiroshi "Gitchang" Okuno is building robots that can listen to three people talking simultaneously and understand them, addressing a fundamental AI problem known as the cocktail party effect. Check it out at your local newsstand!

P.S.: I'll be speaking at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan at the end of August.