Matteo Interlandi on Project Hummingbird

Hello and Welcome to Data Driven.In this episode, Frank and Andy speak with researcher Matteo Interlandi about project Hummingbird.  Audio file matteo-mixdown.mp3 Transcript 00:00:00 BAILey Hello and welcome to dated driven. 00:00:02 BAILey In this episode, Frank and Andy speak with researcher Matteo Interlandi about project Hummingbird. 00:00:09 BAILey Now on with the show. 00:00:10 Frank Second, hello and welcome to data driven. 00:00:21 Frank The podcast where we explore the emerging fields of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. 00:00:27 Frank If you'd like to think of data as the new oil, then you can consider us. 00:00:30 Frank Car Talk because we focus on where the rubber meets the virtual road and with me on this epic Rd. 00:00:36 Frank We're on the information superhighway as oh is Andy Leonard. 00:00:39 Frank How you doing Andy? 00:00:40 Andy I'm well Frank, how are? 00:00:41 Frank You I'm doing alright. We're recording this on Wednesday, September 1st, 2021 and the the. 00:00:51 Frank The the remnants of Hurricane Ida are ripping through the DC area. 00:00:57 Frank Uh, so if, uh, if I suddenly get dropped, that's because we probably lost power. 00:01:03 Frank But I do have the backup generator, the one that the professionals installed and my. 00:01:10 Frank Duct taped together a solar generator so. 00:01:15 Frank I will be offline. 00:01:17 Frank For a short. 00:01:18 Frank Bit and hopefully come back online. 00:01:20 Frank How how you doing, Eddie. 00:01:23 Andy I'm doing alright Frank. Well, we are you know I'm about gosh 250 miles South of UM we didn't get near the near the effects of Hurricane Ida as you did. 00:01:34 Andy We're getting a little bit of rain now. 00:01:36 Andy We've had some wind. 00:01:37 Andy Gusts, but it's been really mild, and if you look on the radar. 00:01:41 Andy Gotta watch it into track and I I do. 00:01:43 Andy I'm a weather weenie and amateur but it it just kind of went around us to the to the West and it actually started the east when it got a little north of us and aimed right for your house. 00:01:54 Andy I was looking outside that's where Frank lived, right? 00:01:56 Andy And look, the eye is coming right for. 00:01:58 Andy Frank what's left? 00:02:00 Frank Well, fortunately we're safe. 00:02:02 Frank There was some kind of flooding in Rockville and the small overnight, and some folks they got up. 00:02:09 Frank No one, nobody died that I'm. 00:02:10 Frank Aware of so. 00:02:11 It it says. 00:02:12 Frank You know we're not. 00:02:13 Frank Custom the floods or hurricanes or tornadoes up here in DC and and we're more used to the human threats of, you know, little things like terrorism and things. 00:02:25 Frank Like that, but. 00:02:26 Andy Yeah yeah, you guys got a little bit more to worry about that than we do here in FarmVille, right? 00:02:32 Andy But you know these days. 00:02:33 Andy Who knows? 00:02:35 Andy The, uh, definitely our thoughts and prayers are with the folks in in Louisiana and Mississippi. 00:02:40 Andy They were hit very hard. 00:02:42 Andy I've got got friends in Georgia, Western Georgia were telling me that. 00:02:47 Andy They they took a beating as well and you know it just it looks horrible I. 00:02:53 Andy I you know, I've I've been in a few of those places after hurricanes have hit as part of like church efforts to help clean up and stabilize and stuff like that. 00:03:04 Andy It looks like I don't know. 00:03:06 Andy They people describe it as like a war. 00:03:09 Andy I've never been in a war so I don't know. 00:03:10 Andy I've seen pictures and. 00:03:13 Andy There's a lot. 00:03:14 Andy It looks like a lot of stuff is blowing over, and that sort of. 00:03:16 Andy Stuff, it's just. 00:03:18 Andy So, and they're talking weeks and weeks before power comes back on. 00:03:22 Frank That's horrible, that's. 00:03:23 Andy Similar places, yeah. 00:03:25 Frank That's that's. 00:03:26 Frank Probably going to be do more damage from for a lot of things. 00:03:30 Andy Were you worried? 00:03:30 But on a. 00:03:30 Frank More positive note, uh, a positive note. 00:03:31 Andy Yes, on a positive note. 00:03:35 Frank Uh, we are. 00:03:37 Frank I am super excited to have a special guest and I say super excited because he's from Microsoft. 00:03:42 Frank He's a senior scientist in Jelt at Microsoft, working on scalable machine learning systems. 00:03:50 Frank Before he was at Microsoft, he was a postdoc scholar at the Computer Science department at UCLA, and this he was doing a lot of interesting stuff there. 00:04:03 Frank He was doing research at Qatar or Qatar. 00:04:05 Frank I'm not sure how to say that exactly, but he has a PhD in computer science. 00:04:11 Frank In university. 00:04:12 Frank Of Modena and or? 00:04:15 Frank I'm going to botch this. 00:04:15 Frank Reggio Emilia. 00:04:17 Frank Welcome to the show, Mateo. 00:04:22 Frank Awesome, so we are really excited to have you here. 00:04:25 Frank We actually booked you a whole month in advance. 00:04:27 Frank I've been looking forward to this. 00:04:29 Frank Yeah, because you're coming by way of some of the folks at the Mlad conference. 00:04:35 Frank And for those who don't know, I'm a I've mentioned this. 00:04:37 Frank Mlad stands for machine learning and data science summit. 00:04:40 Frank It used to be in person I think now it's entirely virtual for the foreseeable future. 00:04:45 Frank Uh, but that why I attended M lads in 2016 summer of 2016 and it was uh, it was life altering like I don't say that. 00:04:55 Frank Lightly so. 00:04:56 Frank So Microsoft does amazing work in the machine learning and data science space. 00:05:02 Frank Very much cutting edge stuff very much I. 00:05:06 Frank I wouldn't say under the radar, but Microsoft does not do a great job putting its own horn, so we're very excited for you to come on Mateo and talk about this little project that you're working on. 00:05:17 Frank And what is the is it have a code name or what? 00:05:20 Frank What is it called? 00:05:22 Matteo Hummingbird should the code name is actually I'm in. 00:05:26 Matteo Don't have any specific internal names for. 00:05:28 Matteo This for this. 00:05:28 Frank OK, what what is GL stand for? 00:05:32 Frank That was my that was my first question. 00:05:33 Frank When I saw your bio. 00:05:35 Matteo Uh is for Gray system lamp and is the after Jim Gray which. 00:05:41 Oh, OK. 00:05:41 Matteo Is putting award yeah? 00:05:45 OK. 00:05:46 Matteo So these are the search lab after this name yeah and use within the Azure data organization. 00:05:49 Oh, interesting. 00:05:53 Frank And uhm, So what? 00:05:56 Frank What what cool stuff does Hummingbird...