Kernow DAT 2016

Billed as an 'evening for the digitally curious', the event was hosted by Kernow DAT in conjunction with Software Cornwall, at Workbox. There was a great buzz on the night. I recognised a few people from the thriving local development community, in particular some friendly faces from my spiritual home Cornwall Geeks.

Before the talks commenced, I was lucky enough to demo a virtual reality game called Unseen Diplomacy. Created by Cornwall-based development team, Triangular Pixel, the game is designed to be shown at exhibitions and events. Watching someone trying to avoid invisible lasers and crawling through non-existent air ducts is just as fun as playing the game.

One of the standout aspects of the game, is the clever use of real space. The game can be played in a small, cleared room - yet it is able to reveal larger perspectives as well as confined spaces. Unseen Diplomacy was built using Unity and was demoed on a Vive headset. The game is available on Steam.

Natalia Waniczek, from Nixon Design (and valued member of Cornwall Geeks), outlined her approach to the adoption of new programming languages, based on experiences of learning languages simultaneously from different language families.

Natalia drew parallels through syntax, grammar, vocabulary and the semantics between categories of code and human languages (eg C-family/imperative vs functional). Natalia emphasised the importance of immersion and repeated using whilst learning, using the comparison to reinforce the importance of avoiding deep nesting and repetition in code, as well as the importance of improved function naming for code readability.

Wo King and Marcus Hitchins of Hi9 demoed their use of Card Theory in combination with Google’s ‘Material design’, Firebase and Polymer to streamline information to create a live updating web/mobile interface that meshes with the tangibility of real world cards.

Garry Barter from Hertzian explained how they use AI, and the wider implications of the technology. Hertzian uses machine learning to cut through the chatter of millions of posts on the iOS store, to get meaningful feedback about specific products. Garry highlighted how important sector and product tailored semantics are when discovering genuinely useful feedback.

Garry outlined current and future uses of AI and machine learning from the invisible rationalisation of communications by microsoft’s <BLANK> and google’s Inbox, to Tesla and driverless cars. One example Garry drew attention to, which I found particularly interesting, was that machine learning can guide out of school tuition. Intended to supplement real world mentoring, this sort of intervention has the potential to level the inequality of opportunity for less privileged students.

Tom Goskar gave a surprisingly witty and engaging perspective on the challenges of using laser and photometric scanning to capture archaeological sites in extraordinary detail. Tom spoke about a recent project in Cornwall, where he had to build up a picture of St Piran’s Oratory - which was recently re-excavated after it was deliberately buried under a dune.

The 3D archaeological survey reveals perspectives that cannot be seen at the real world location, due to a defensive concrete wall that was erected around the structure. Another revelation was the use of algorithms to pick invisible detail from worn stone surfaces, revealing long lost engravings. The model can be viewed and manipulated on Sketchfab, or previewed on Youtube.

In summary, Cornwall is establishing some confidence in its tech and development sector, driven by the passion of a community of like minded individuals, and backed by some forward looking local businesses. Kernow DAT captured this group’s imagination and was a great networking opportunity as well as a great night out.

Also, if you are organising an event to get people inspired, get some games involved, and remember you can never go wrong with free pasties.