Comments by "Alexander Sylchuk" (@sshko101) on "MEMS: The Second Silicon Revolution?" video.

  1.  @isaacdorfman  You didn't get it, they are still field programmable gate arrays, but the gates themselves are photonic (if I myself got it right). For certain tasks benefits are huge especially so if you have some AI to recognise what better to compute with optical circuitry.
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  2. Isn't the size of a speaker is its own bandpass filter? Not sure about tiny speaker's ability to reproduce low frequencies, unless there is some subharmonic resonance. I always had this adea about microphone/speaker with mechanical sensor for every audible harmonic. For lower frequencies it won't be directly MEMS but with some mechanical transformation as in our ear it might work. Not sure if it makes any sense, but at least it will bypass ADC and frequency response of every part of a conventional microphone.
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  3.  @gblargg  Aren't FFT and convolution algorithms meant to be done in hardware? I think that there is no need for software since you'll already need to use hardware design. If it someday become a reality we will most likely start to encode harmonics with time but not the quantized data from ADC, so it'll al be done in one scecial circuit.
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  4.  @gblargg  My idea is probably more religious in a sense that you'll be sure that the sound you've recorded is exactly the sound that was there. You will be no longer limited with the quality of your equipment there will be only exact copy of sound you decided to record. It's like in Nicene creed we say "light of light" as if it is not limited or changed by any new interpretation or permutation. I just have this feeling that the price of hardware in the future is going to erase the difference between such specific circuit and modern ADC + codec solution.
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  5.  @gblargg  I wouldn't necessarily call it esoteric)) What I mean by original sound is just exact changes of pressure with time in the place where it was recorded. With MEMS we can recreate something similar to what is going on inside our ears. Every time you use microphone of any kind you add up to the original signal acoustic frequency response of your mic itself, after that there is frequency response of a membrane used in that mic, after that there is frequency response of the mechanism by which youre going to transform sound into the electric signal whether it is coil, capacitor, ribbon or crystal and after that you have frequency response of your electric circuitry, like amplification and analog to digital conversion. Mathematically speaking you have convoluted your original signal with many frequency response functions from all those middle steps. Some folks can listen sounds only by pointing a laser beam onto a window, for those scenarious they only need to know a frequency response of that window. Everything will bring its effect onto the acoustic scene. By the original sound I mean not just pure signal from the source, but rather all the reverberations from all the objects which have their own frequency responses that are present on the scene (whether it's some room or open space). The reason why people like tube amps, film photography or filters on social media is the same, they just prefer the convolution of the original imformation with frequency response function of that medium that they prefer. To me pesonaly more important question is probably ownership of intelectual property. Where is this limit between simple convolution of frequency responses and significant enough change so that it will make it specifically yours. Whether it is just a reflection or your personal work, words etc. Right now this line is defined by our legal system and edge cases are decided in courts. The real concern is when countries with vertical control of their legal systems start to decide this question on their own.
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  6.  @eljuligallego  Ok, photonics are maybe more application specific right now, but a theoretical AI which can recognise that this part of some task is better be calculated with optical circuitry on our (hypothetical) SOC or computer isn't far from a reality.
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