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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Sam Dean

From Food Bot Discovery to Suggestions, Facebook Messenger Gets Smarter

From guidelines to making the perfect steak to numerous other conversational cooking applications, food-focused bots on Facebook Messenger have been advancing rapidly. Now, along with numerous other advancements, Facebook has launched new features that make discovering and trying new food bots much easier. At its F8 conference in April, the company announced new “Discover” features that would demystify finding an interacting with the best bots, and these features officially launched this week for users in the United States, along with new chat extensions that allow users to conversationally interact with sites such as OpenTable.

Messenger has more than a billion downloads on Google Play alone, and Facebook confirms that more than 1.2 billion users use Messenger each month. Its popularity is giving rise to an enthusiastic community of bot builders. The company has been adding chatbot  features within the nucleus of Messenger through its “M” AI assistant. We’ve written before about cooking with the Joule sous vide machine using Messenger, and new bots are taking conversational cooking in many directions.

So how do you discover the best bots and food oriented businesses and sites that you can interact with? On the lower right side of your Messenger home screen, touching a Discover button brings up categories that you can investigate, including one for Food & Drink. This lets you investigate organizations working with Messenger ranging from The Food Network to restaurants.

You can also investigate a “Featured” section to identify interesting new bots. A video from Facebook shows these features in action.

Bot developers and businesses can also now interact directly with users within Messenger chats. For example, you can reserve tables at restaurants conversationally via OpenTable. These features are enabled through Chat Extensions, which were also first announced at the F8 conference.

“Our goal with Discover is to ensure that experiences in Messenger are compelling, high quality and easy to find. This latest update makes it even more intuitive for people to find what they care about most,” writes Yingming Chen, a Facebook Messenger Engineer.

For developers and businesses interested in getting their bots or conversational cooking experiences added to the Discover section, submission instructions are found here.

Finally, Facebook has also made improvements to M, its AI-fueled personal assistant. As seen below, whether you are having a conversation with a person or a bot, M now intelligently suggests a “Save it for Later” option. If M senses that you are trading URLs for say, vegan recipes, it will automatically suggest that you save the links for later.  In addition to links M will suggest that you may want to save Facebook posts, videos and more.

Small but Powerful: Automating the Smart Kitchen with the Raspberry Pi

Ever since the first credit-card sized model was released in 2012, the Raspberry Pi line of sub-$100 Linux devices has defied all expectations. Its owners have chained the devices together to construct powerful supercomputers and used single devices to drive home automation and security systems. The Raspberry Pi is also a great way to inexpensively automate a smart kitchen, and there are easy-to-follow DIY recipes for doing so online.

First-generation Raspberry Pi devices were nowhere near as powerful and flexible as today’s models. The first generation had no Wi-Fi capabilities, minimal memory and a mid-range CPU. Fast-forward to today, though, and Raspberry Pi devices are as powerful and capable as many personal computers, but available at a fraction of the cost. Their low cost is partly due to the fact that these devices run free and open source Linux distributions instead of expensive, proprietary operating systems.

The Raspberry Pi community is waking up to the promise of artificial intelligence, as well, which holds promise for smart kitchens. Some Raspberry Pi owners are building their own AI-driven voice assistants, and Google has open sourced its AI-driven Google Assistant SDK, which can be used with Pi devices.

For several years now, Raspberry Pi community members have been publishing their DIY instructions for automating smart kitchen devices and processes. Many of these tutorials are available via video, and here are just a few examples:

Controlling kitchen lights with a mobile phone and the Pi:

Controlling kitchen lights with phone and Raspberry Pi Zero

Automating ambient lighting with the Pi:

Make your own Ambient Lighting with the Raspberry Pi Zero

Using a Raspberry Pi and touchscreen for an eye-level recipe manager

 

On the forums at RaspberryPi.org, you can inquire about the many other smart kitchen concepts that leverage these devices.

Meanwhile, if you want to dive deep into automating the smart kitchen with the Raspberry Pi, a guide called Smart Home Automation with Linux and Raspberry Pi is available. It details how to automate everything from curtains to music to lights working with a Pi device in conjunction with either a laptop or smartphone.

“Aside from the Arduino, the Raspberry Pi probably has the largest community for any single piece of hardware currently on the market,” notes author Steven Goodwin. “The cost of a Raspberry Pi means that it’s no longer unreasonable to have one (or two) computers in every room in the house…It is also worth considering that the Raspberry Pi is easier and cheaper to hack than any existing gadget off the shelf.”

Raspberry Pi devices are now essentially as powerful as fully stocked personal computers, but diminutive in size. One or several of them can give you flexible options for automating processes in your smart kitchen.

Why Synthetic Sensors Could Be The Future Of Smart Kitchen Monitoring

Will the smart kitchen of the future be stocked with arrays of distributed sensors or could a single suite of sensors, localized on a credit-card sized housing, plug into an outlet to imbue the kitchen with all the intelligence it needs? According to Carnegie Mellon researchers in the Future Interfaces Group, the latter concept is highly promising.

The Future Interfaces Group has developed a synthetic sensor-based device that can monitor multiple types of phenomena in a room, including sounds, vibration, light, heat, electromagnetic noise, and temperature. This device, featuring nine sensors, can determine whether a faucet’s left or right spigot is running, if the microwave door is open or how many paper towels have been dispensed.

“The idea is you can plug this in and immediately turn a room into a smart environment,” said Gierad Laput, a Ph.D. student in CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). “You don’t have to go out and buy expensive smart appliances, which probably can’t talk to each other anyway, or attach sensors to everything you want to monitor, which can be both hard to maintain and ugly. You just plug it into an outlet.”

Machine learning algorithms combine raw data feeds into powerful synthetic sensors that can identify a wide range of events and objects. For example, they can distinguish between a blender, coffee grinder, and mixer based on sounds and vibrations.

The CMU researchers discuss the technology in the following video and have been demonstrating it at recent conferences:

Synthetic Sensors: Towards General-Purpose Sensing

“Smart appliances are expensive and rarely talk to one another,” the researchers note. “We’ve explored an alternate, general purpose sensing approach where a single, highly capable sensor board can indirectly monitor an entire room. We started our research by taking an inventory of sensors used in commercial and academic systems. Our sensor board is plug-and-play, uses wall power and connects to our cloud over WiFi.”

CMU researchers are also expanding the types of data feeds that the sensors work with. For example, the sensors can infer human activity, such as when someone has left for work, and the sensors can be trained to recognize various phenomena, such as the cycling of heating and air conditioning units. In addition, the sensors can be trained to detect many popular devices and brands of kitchen products

Google, through the GIoTTo Expedition Project, has supported the CMU research, as has the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.  Google is also actively pursuing its Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, which are similar in concept to the general purpose sensors from Carnegie Mellon.

The CMU sensing concepts are, of course, joining many other imaginative new ideas for sensors that could impact smart kitchens. For example, NeOse is a new device that connects to smartphones and databases and can recognize more than 50 types of odors. This smell-sensing device could detect when a food item is spoiled in a refrigerator, when food is being overcooked, and more.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking, and the kitchen. Use the discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

Hungry for Funding? New Avenues for Food Startup Financing are Opening Up

Ask many people how to find funding for emerging food projects, and lots of them will point to crowdsourcing sites. After all, sites such as Kickstarter have driven concepts ranging from PicoBrew to the Anova Precision Cooker to levels of funding that would put a smile on any startup founder’s face. Indeed, when it comes to gadgets and devices in the food arena, the widely known crowdsourcing sites can pay off, but other kinds of concepts are finding funding through alternative routes and alternative crowdsourcers.

Where can you turn if Kickstarter or GoFundMe don’t seem right for your project? If you have a food or beverage startup concept, consider PieShell. It’s based in New York, and was founded by entrepreneur Cheryl Clements. Check out some of the concepts that PieShell is funding here.

Part of PieShell’s concept is that crowdfunding has benefits that go beyond just money. “Crowdfunding ultimately brings you closer to your customers — something that’s crucial for startup success,” notes PieSheller Caroline Halter. “Branching out beyond friends and family helps you learn what your customers like about your product, as well as what they don’t like. For instance, one of our first PieShellers, Edamam, crowdfunded to build a nutrition app. The crowdfunding experience helped them realize that their real potential was in B2B (business-to-business), rather than consumer markets.”

According to Halter, another benefit to crowdfunding is that it can give you an instant hook for a pitch to the press. “Once you get a little bit of press, it’s much easier to get more,” she said.

 Credibles is another avenue to look into for funding. It was started in San Francisco in 2014 by founder Arno Hesse. The twist that Credibles provides is a way for customers to financially support their favorite food businesses. The basic concept is that customers are investors. Customers can prepay a business by starting a tab with the business, and then they draw on the tab whenever they visit.

Credibles offers food and beverage businesses financial flexibility up front. Case in point: Driver’s Market is a small grocery store that focuses on transparent, non-GMO sourcing direct from as many local producers as possible. Through Credibles, Driver’s Market has already raised over $100,000 from its customers, with the first $10,000 arriving in 10 days. You can find out how to get your business or concept funded with Credibles here.

The angel investors who provide funding for technology-focused startups have their counterparts in the food and beverage arena. Food Angels is an organization that strictly invests in early stage food and food-tech startups. The group consists of accredited angel investors who screen companies each month and select a few to consider for funding. Food Angels invests in the form of equity, royalties and more.

There are also community organizations for food startups seeking funding. The Angel Food Network is an organization of emerging food and beverage companies seeking funding. Membership is by invitation and you can apply here.  Some types of food and food tech concepts may also qualify for the IKEA Bootcamp accelerator program, which will reward startups trying to solve the world’s problems. Food tech concepts have the potential to qualify, and you can find out more here.

Finally, it’s worth noting that the world of food funding has its own dedicated conferences. Future Food-Tech is one that is typically held in North America and Europe, and the Food Investing Conference is another one to look into.

Getting a project funded can call for some creativity, but there are more options available to startups than ever before. Entrepreneurs who think outside the box will have the strongest chances to find funding.

Make sure to check out the Smart Kitchen Summit, the only event about the future of food, cooking and the kitchen. Also, make sure to subscribe to get The Spoon in your inbox. 

Meet Heston Bot, A Skype Bot That Helps You Figure Out What To Make For Dinner

At the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and the future of food, the race is on to build the bot that truly hits the spot. From bots that “go where consumers are,” to chatbots that help you track food consumption, you can now interact with virtual personalities of many types. Microsoft, one of many companies increasing its investments in AI, is now betting on a bot with probably the world’s most famous chef to raise awareness of its bot platform.

The company has launched “Heston Bot,” its first ever food-inspired bot, exclusively for the Skype platform. It lets you get up close and personal with superstar chef Heston Blumenthal, and provides several ways for you to benefit from his fluency with food.

According to Microsoft: “Combining a lifetime of culinary experimentation with the power of conversational computing, the Heston Bot provides users with eye-opening cooking tips, exclusive seasonal menus, and personal anecdotes directly from the master. Every month, the Heston Bot will deliver to you new recipes based on different seasons and themes, so you never get bored with the same recipes. And stay tuned during the weeks in between episodes for additional bursts of cooking info, stories, and chats from Heston.”

To add the Heston Bot within Skype, search for “Heston Bot” in the Skype Bot Directory and click “Add to Contacts.” Once you’ve done that the bot can interact with you in the same ways you interact with friends, family or colleagues. You can watch a video of Heston expressing his excitement about the bot here.

In branding a bot with a superstar chef, Microsoft is working from a particular AI playbook that increasingly appears to have merit. Specifically, the company is leveraging AI to complement a person’s capabilities, rather than competing with human capabilities. This is no small point in AI circles. In fact, Yale University researchers have recently conducted a series of experiments showing that enhancing personal skillsets with AI is much more promising than entirely substituting human skillsets with AI.

Cooking with Heston Bot, a Skype powered bot from Microsoft and Heston Blumenthal

In the case of Heston Bot, you can have interactive experiences with a legendary chef that can build on whatever level of cooking prowess you command. Heston Blumenthal is known as rule breaker in culinary circles, so the bot may very well challenge some of your assumptions in the kitchen.

“We’re becoming slaves to recipes,” Blumenthal said. “When you lose your fear of something not working, it does really change how you look at things.”

That message about overcoming fear was also the first statement that Heston Bot made to me as I began interacting with it. It appears to have very strong natural language and AI smarts. I asked it about cooking techniques and more, and it understood me and also directed me to where I can find all of Heston’s recipes. It’s definitely smarter than your average bot.

For more on AI and cooking, see our recent stories on the Forksy conversational foodbot, a chatbot-powered sommelier, and our interview with Michael Gyarmathy, the creator of an Alexa Skill called Cooking Competition.