Spark CBC Discover & Learn
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- Technology
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Spark on CBC Radio One Nora Young helps you navigate your digital life by connecting you to fresh ideas in surprising ways.
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Should robots work for us or with us?
Strides in AI software are finding their way into physical robots. It's promising a new era of human-robot interaction, where robots can assist us, respond to our needs and to cues in the environment. Question is: are we ready for robots among us?
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Building more responsive, AI-driven infrastructure
Like most of us, you probably only think about infrastructure when it doesn't work: the power goes off, the roads flood. But in the face of climate change and the increasing energy demands of our digital tech, how can we rethink what infrastructure looks like to meet our future needs?
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How yeast and bacteria could be key to future fashion design
One of civilization's oldest technologies, textiles have long been linked to money, power, and politics. Now, researchers are looking to produce novel, more sustainable textiles using organisms like yeast, fungus, and bacteria.
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Being Human Now - Play
What does play mean in a digital age, when so much happens on our all-consuming phones, and tech erases the boundaries between work and play?
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Can we put a watermark on reality?
In an age of misinformation and generative AI, how do we know if anything we read or hear is even real anymore? From the latest trends in internet search to watermarking images to (re)establishing trust in journalism, we examine the role of proof in a post-truth world.
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Predicting problems before they happen
Digital twin technology is growing rapidly across multiple industries. From race cars to the human heart to the entire country of Canada, a look at how these virtual replicas use real-time data to model and predict the future.
Customer Reviews
Excellent podcast - background music too loud
This is the best podcast on this platform. However, the background music has become too loud to the point that it’s hard to concentrate on the spoken word. Please fix it, Nora.
A long time subscriber.
Nora is the Bomb
I <3 Spark.This is a nice way to keep up with tech and trends in electronic media. So good to say she makes my day.
Good show even with the strong left tilt, and a bit naive
You will never ever hear anything favorable to the right on this show. Nothing on for example the cost of things to government (meaning us) the downside of single parent families, crime rate of POCs, etc. that said, what’s presented is interesting.
A couple examples.
Bias in machine learning was cited and showed racism. Actually, most everything covered in this show was racist (a slight exaggeration). Nothing about how ML is much easier to fix than the alternative. If a person doesn’t hire people because of racism, you can’t easily tell. However you can throw data at a machine and see the results; it won’t hide them. It’s fixable, the person isn’t (well not easily)
Truckers and the surveillance society was an interesting show. And I happen to agree with the concerns of the speaker. But she and the host were terribly naive. There was nothing on how much of a problem was in trucking and all truckers (except very young ones) were noble, responsible people