Machine Learning and MP3s 228
dan moore writes "Students at Caltech and Harvard have developed a system that analyzes playlists and learns people's listening patterns. It then channels its knowledge into generating streams of music that the people themselves would like to listen to. Intuitive, accurate, and finally someone has done it. Check out the website to get one of the available plugins. Another interesting approach to digital music."
No source, no XMMS plugin... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Machine learning is a powerful tool (Score:3, Insightful)
A combination of NN based recognition [usc.edu] coupled with Eigen vectors [scheib.net] for a standardised dimension (for the pic) might just be able to do it
Its not rocketscience you know, just pr0n
@( * O * )@
Machine Learning parts (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No source, no XMMS plugin... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't run Windows, then you're not going to be able to run 100% of Windows software- there's just no way around it with things as they are.
Either suck it up and wait, or don't complain that you have to install Winamp to use a plugin specifically made for Winamp.
I like (and run) Linux as much as the next guy, but making comments like that as soon as software is released causes people to appear incredibly ungrateful. Cut the kids some slack, i'm sure your XMMS plugin will be done soon.
Hmmmmmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Say you spend most of your time playing Unreal Tournament 2003 with winamp in the background, and so this software learns that you like ripping violent music about 90% of the time.
Then you bring home the aforementioned Chinese girl and you put on some soft guitar music and just and things are becoming interesting, the song ends, and the idiot "Brain" decides a little Rob Zombie is just what you need, based off past experience.
Half the time I don't know myself what I want to listen to...It's too closely linked to my mood to be modeled in a purely statistical manner unless my mood levels out because of some wierdness (i.e. I smoke a lot of pot so I listen to a lot of Grateful Dead, or my significant other dumps me and I listen to really depressing breakup music for a month.) Otherwise, I'm going to be oscillating all day between different types of music, so something which may please me in the morning may get skipped bigtime by the afternoon.
But even THAT isn't reliable; I could be mellow, listening to mellow stuff on Friday morning, then WHAM! Major programming meltdown at a big client! I have to mobilize my tired brain cells with brain crushing rock/metal! A reversal of my otherwise "normal" progression from violent to mellow during the course of the day, which itself is often severly affected by how much I have to deal with my boss.
I don't see how such a thing could be truly accurate unless it has the facility to somehow read my mood. I can think of several ways to do this, but I doubt blush reflex scanners, heart rate/ekg monitors, voice stress monitors, or neural feedback chips are included with the software.
I'm not sure I'd want it to be accurate anyway. Seems like it would be too easy to get lulled into a pattern, with no new input. Kind of stale. Unless it can read a new song and figure out, statistically whether or not I would like it, which sounds more like a Turing test than anything else. Maybe worse; my S.O. can't figure out what the hell I like, so if a computer COULD, well, I'd probably finally be able to write off the opposite sex.
I'm not holding my breath.
Re:Random playing (Score:2, Insightful)
That's what this is, really. Personalized data mining. And all the prosecutor has to do is say, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, observe. He listens to Emminem. Consider that fact when you consider the verdict."