Kalliope with Nicolas Marcq and Thibaud Buffet

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00:32:33

October 7th, 2017

32 mins 33 secs

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About this Episode

Summary

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a personal assistant to answer your questions, help you remember important tasks, and control your environment? Meet Kalliope, a Python powered, modular, voice controlled automation platform. This week Nicolas Marcq and Thibaud Buffet explain how they started the project, what makes it stand out from other open source and commercial options, and how you can start using it today.

Preface

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  • Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Nicolas Marcq and Thibaud Buffet about Kalliope, a modular always-on voice controlled personal assistant designed for home automation.

Interview

  • Introductions
  • How did you get introduced to Python?
  • What is the Kalliope project and how did it get started?
  • How does Kalliope compare to commercial options such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home, as well as other open source projects such as Mycroft or Jasper?
  • The majority of voice assistant projects that I have seen default to interacting in English, whereas Kalliope is multi-lingual. What led you to that design choice and how is that implemented?
  • One of the perennial questions around voice assistants is privacy, so how does Kalliope work to mitigate the issues associated with having an always on device listening in people’s homes?
  • How is Kalliope architected internally and how has the design evolved over time?
  • What are some of the most difficult or challenging aspects of building Kalliope and its associated projects?
  • What are some of the most interesting uses of Kalliope that you are aware of?
  • What are some of the most notable features or improvements that you have planned for the future of Kalliope?
  • How has the choice of Python as the implementation worked for you, and if you were to start over today do you think you would make the same decision?

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The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA