We took a journey through the development of Artificial Intelligence.  We thought about a definition of artificial intelligence and the development objectives as well as looking at the nature of both Symbolic and Neural Network based AI.  We had the underpinning techniques and examples of multi-layer perceptrons, Backprop training techniques, deep learning, Large Language Models and Generative AI (all at a high level of course).
The presentation - in PDF format of course - is available by clicking here.  Unfortunately the video of DeepMind learning Breakout does work after exporting to PDF - but just search for DeepMind & Breakout and you will find the YouTube video.

Our topic of the day was how to do interesting things with Spreadsheets.  We had a very quick and brief introduction to spreadsheets which is in the linked presentation.  Then some of our members demonstrated their use of spreadsheets including

• A graphical use representation of medical records
• An analysis of tidal and weather data for Weymouth flooding predictions
• An accounting programme allowing the classification of transactions
• A domestic gas consumption and costing spreadsheet
• Use of Excel to hold family history information and in particular collected photographs

  Unfortunately the demonstrations are not available here, but the short inforduction is.  The presentation - in PDF format of course - is available by clicking here.

We had our periodic brainstorm on topics for future meetings and voted on which topics should take priority.  The list of all the topics is shown below with the votes in brackets:

1. How to do interesting things with a spreadsheet (6)
2. Artificial intelligence /neural networks (4)
3. Streaming - the best way to go (4)
4. Computer languages - functionality vs ease of use (4)
5. Laptop vs Tablet (4)
6. Microchip design (2)
7. Being safe on the internet (2)
8. History of computer development (2)
9. Bluetooth (1)
10. Digital communications / information encoding (1)
11. Chromebooks (1)
12. Mac vs Windows vs Linux (1)
13. Printing from an Android tablet (1)
14. Android- Laptop integrations (0)
15. Exploring a Microsoft Account (0)
16. Human Computer Interface - where next (0)

Our topic of the day was the use of PDFs.  We covered some history and definition of the PDF format/standard,  the "normal" use of PDFs, and then how PDFs could be amended with the wide availability of PDF tools.  The presentation - in PDF format of course - is available by clicking here.

This Month's topic was http or Internet Cookies.  We covered the what Cookies are intended to do, different types of Cookies and how they work.  We went into additional detail on tracking Cookies and then Cookie handling by different browsers.  A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here

This Month's topic was USB sticks.  We covered what a USB device is, what a USB stick can be used for, its evolution and significant variants.  We also covered some interesting uses and common problems.  A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here.

This month's topic was Password Managers.  We covered typical risks to passwords, internet security, VPNs 
Multi-factor authentication and Passkeys before looking at Password manager functionality and available systems.   A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here.

This month's topic was email.  We covered how email works, email addressing, what is sent across the internet, client server options,  We also looked at choices of email systems and finally how to spot a fake email.   A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here.

The month's topic was Using Cloud Storage - what it is, why use it, some popular services and how to use them. We also discussed some of the problems people experience.
For the "fundamentals" topic, we looked at the creating a document in Microsoft Word and using the various editing and styling functionality.  There are no slides for this part of the meeting because it was a demonstration.
A copy of the presentation on Cloud Storage in pdf format can be seen here.

The main topic of the meeting was Solid State Drives - the performance, reliability and cost compared to traditional magnetic disk drives.  It also covered a little of how they work and where the disk drive fits into a computer system.
The Fundamentals topic of the meeting was all about files and folders. What are they?  How do they differ and how do you work with them.  A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here.

Our main topic was "Which Apps are Great" - We had demonstrations from Jackie and Les of: ELK, Movie, Plant Snap, BirdNet, City Mapper, Marine Radar. All well worth looking at.  If you would like to know more, look at them in the App Store or Google Store. I gave a quick demonstration of spreadsheet use.  These demonstrations were not recorded and do not have a presentation.  In the Computing Foundations section, we explained the difference between an app and a website.   A copy of the presentation in pdf format can be seen here.