Computerphile

There's a reason Needham–Schroeder isn't used any more - Tim Muller demonstrates the weakness in the technique.

One of the cleanest ways to cut down a search space when working out point proximity! Mike Pound explains K-Dimension Trees.

The Mixed Reality lab at the University of Nottingham has been studying virtual and augmented reality for decades. We chatted to Steve Benford, Paul Tennent & Edgard Bodiaj from the Mixed Reality Lab & Kate Wellham from Live Cinema about their system 'Bubbles' and how it fits with the current state of VR and the benefits over Zoom & Teams meetings. The VR environment shown in the video is not Meta/Facebook's 'Metaverse', it is a virtual environment created by the mixed reality lab at the University of Nottingham, used here to illustrate some of the benefits of VR over traditional online meetings.

Git doesn't actually perform magic, but it's pretty neat. Dr Max Wilson takes us through the various elements that make Git such a useful tool.

Continuing our look at Git, Dr Max Wilson has a quick look at versions and branches.

Remembering a time when connections were down to 40 bits per second, and the resulting algorithms still in use today! Dr Richard G Clegg of Queen Mary University London has the details.

Many will have heard the phrase 'Mythical Man Month' and assume it's simply about whether manpower and time are interchangeable - the book is really about much more. Professor Brailsford explains how this all relates to the humble byte.

Apple's latest M1 chip is two older chips bolted together, Dr. Steve Bagley explains how they made it work the same as a single chip.

Computer says no! What if two team members try to edit the same file in a project? Git has you covered - Dr Max Wilson explains how teams collaborate using Git.

Continuing on from the Professor's look at the Mythical Man Month, we're talking about whether IBM could have used high level languages in their groundbreaking 360 series.

Could robots like this be sent into nuclear facilities to autonomously deal with toxic waste? That's the plan. Nick & Michal from Oxford Robotics Institute demonstrate & explain their automation of the familiar yellow robot 'spot.' The project was the result of a collaboration between the Oxford Robotics Institute (particularly the DRS and GOALS groups) and Createc (createc.co.uk), and was supported by UKRI through the ISCF RAIN and ORCA Hubs, the AutoInspect project, and the EPSRC Programme Grant in Embodied Intelligence.

How do you compute a massive number raised to the power of another huge number, modulo something else? Dr Mike Pound explains the super-quick square & multiply algorithm.

The psychic paper in the TV show "Doctor Who" displays whatever the Doctor needs it to show at any given time. The Java vulnerability Neil Madden exposed is a digital version of this. Dr Mike Pound explains.

Why do WiFI speeds vary so much? Dr Steve Bagley demonstrates how even a poor signal for one person can affect those with a seemingly perfect signal!

If you pick the wrong prime numbers, cracking RSA becomes a cinch. Dr Mike Pound explains the findings of researcher Hanno Böck.

Zip files & error correction depend on information theory, Tim Muller takes us through how Claude Shannon's early Computer Science work is still essential today!

With the news Apple are implementing Virtual Memory on the iPad, Dr Steve Bagley takes us through what virtual memory is and how it works.

A google researcher was put on leave because he apparently believed his AI project had become sentient. Dr Mike Pound discusses.

You just have the binary - can you work out what it does & how? Dr Steve Bagley talks about how you might reverse engineer a piece of software.

Discussing the philosophical ideas behind AI Sentience, with Professor Mark Jago, Professor of Philosophy at University of Nottingham.

Even the most impressive soft robots have an external control system. What if the software could be running on soft hardware? - Associate Professor Perla Maiolino explains the soft logic in soft robots.

AI Object detection is getting better and better, but as Dr Alex Turner demonstrates, it's far from perfect, and it doesn't recognise things in the same way as us.

We asked Brian Kernighan (author of 'C Programming Language') what language kids should try first.

Could a computer program find Fermat's Lost Theorem? Professor Altenkirch shows us how to get started with lean.

Welcoming back the legend that is Professor Brian Kernighan! Professor Brailsford invites Brian for coffee and a chat.

This video features the Oxford Robotics Institute demonstrating their SLAM algorithm with their frontier device and the Boston Dynamics Spot robot. Thanks to Marco Camurri & Michal Staniaszek for their time.

Knowledge graphs help computers make sense of data for search, recommendations and other AI tasks, Professor Elena Simperl of Kings College London explains.

Blockchain has a controversial reputation, linked as it is to cryptocurrency but Professor Peter McBurney of Kings College London thinks it's an important an invention as the web itself.

Could having more bespoke programming languages speed up software development? Dr Steffen Zschaler, Reader in Computer Science at KCL thinks so.

AI image generators are massive, but how are they creating such interesting images? Dr Mike Pound explains what's going on.

Looking at some real world uses of information theory with Dr Tim Muller.

Mike Continues his look at AI Image Generation with Stable Diffusion.

Deterministic route finding isn't enough for the real world - Nick Hawes of the Oxford Robotics Institute takes us through some problems featuring probabilities.

Just how do computers synchronise clocks across the Internet? Dr Julian Onions implemented this at Nottingham after meeting the godfather of Internet time, Dave Mills!

Information theory shows entropy works a little differently with encryption. Dr Tim Muller takes us through an example.

How do you make a legged robot robust when the environment is against it? Ioannis Havoutis of Oxford Robotics Institute walks us through it.

A look at why (under certain circumstances) JIT Compilers can be so much faster. Dr Laurence Tratt of KCL takes us through the details.

http3 is here, but it wasn't an easy solution, Richard G Clegg of Queen Mary University London explains why he can't decide whether he loves it or hates it!

How does Model Driven Engineering work? Dr Steffen Zschaler, Reader in Computer Science at Kings College London takes us through it.

Throughout 2022 we asked the sound-check question "what's your favourite book?"