Tag Archives: Scottish

AI can now differentiate between American and Scottish whisky aromas

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Enhance the capabilities of artificial intelligence. Experts utilized this method to anticipate the scents emanating from whiskey and distinguish whether it was produced in the United States or Scotland.

This study is a crucial advancement towards a computerized system that can forecast the intricate aromas of whiskey based on its molecular makeup. Traditionally, expert panels evaluate woody, smoky, buttery, or caramel hints to ensure consistency in scent across different batches of the same product.

“One of the key advantages of AI is its unwavering consistency,” noted Dr. Andreas Glaskampf, the lead researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging in Freising, Germany.

“While trained professionals may introduce subjectivity, AI complements human olfaction by offering efficiency and consistency,” he continued.

Detecting the aroma of whiskey poses a significant challenge due to the complex chemical blends that form the dominant notes in spirits. These chemicals interact in the nose, often masking each other to produce a distinct aroma profile, making it hard to predict a whiskey’s scent from its chemical composition.

In the recent research, scientists collected data on the chemical composition and aroma of 16 American and Scottish whiskies, such as Jack Daniel’s, Maker’s Mark, Laphroaig, and Talisker, from an expert panel. This data trained an AI algorithm to predict the five primary aromas and origins of a drink based on its molecular components.

One algorithm showed over 90% accuracy in distinguishing between American and Scottish whiskies, excelling in identifying each drink’s five dominant notes compared to individual human experts. Further details can be found here.

Compounds like menthol and citronellol aided in detecting American whiskey’s caramel-like aroma, while methyl decanoate and heptanoic acid were essential in identifying Scotch’s smoky or medicinal notes.

Beyond whiskey, researchers are exploring applications in various fields, from spotting counterfeit products based on scent variations to innovating the recycling process for plastics with less noticeable odors in new products.

Dr. William Peverer, a senior lecturer in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, believes this AI-based approach could offer more reliable consistency compared to human taste panels, ensuring a stable flavor profile batch after batch.

While this study focused on a limited number of whiskies, the performance of AI with larger datasets and its adaptation to evolving flavor notes as the spirit ages in barrels remain to be seen. External factors like consumption environment may also influence flavor perception, requiring further research according to Dr. Peverer.

Source: www.theguardian.com

The Scottish warrior in me: Exploring the hack-and-slash game Tears of Metal

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‘T“There’s a giant rock that fell from the sky on an island in Scotland. They call it Dragonstone,” Tears of Metal director Raphael Toulouse explains, “and the British send their general out to [a look]”
“But then the general finds the rock and goes a little rogue, a little bit like Apocalypse Now. He breaks ties with the English, takes control of the island, and the English start mining this giant rock to make weapons and armor, but it also affects their minds. So the Scots organize to take the island back. And that’s where you come in.”

In Tears of Metal, you play as the leader of a Scottish battalion, and your job is to get closer and closer to Dragonstone while cutting down breakaway English troops. But as you get closer to the supernatural meteorite, the beautiful green backdrop of the Scottish Highlands gradually transforms into a hellish world. “It gets weirder and weirder, and by the end it looks almost post-apocalyptic,” Toulouse says.

You start with around 10 soldiers, but you can recruit more, and they’ll get stronger over time. Tears of Metal is a roguelike, so if you’re defeated you’ll be sent back to the start of the game, but you’ll keep any troops you’ve gathered for your next playthrough. However, just like in the alien-fighting XCOM series, if one of your soldiers dies in battle, he’s lost forever. The stakes are high, and you may have to rush to rescue your favorite characters before they’re wiped out for good.




Sensitivity warning: imitation blood.

The game is reminiscent of Dynasty Warriors, a series in which powerful warriors mow down hundreds of enemies in fantastical re-enactments of historical battles. Toulouse acknowledges that the series was a “huge influence,” but says the game relies less on button mashing. Up to four players can play together, each with their own army.

Toulouse is CEO of Paper Cult, an indie studio he co-founded in Montreal, Canada, nearly a decade ago. Which begs the question: why a French-Canadian indie studio is making a game set in Scotland? “That’s a good question,” Toulouse says, adding that the game originally had a completely different setting. Settling on medieval Scotland was a marketing decision; they wanted something instantly recognizable. But there’s also the fact that Toulouse is partial to the movies of Mel Gibson.

“I was a huge Braveheart fan,” he says. “I would always watch the movie with my friends after school. I would watch it over and over again. I loved the action scenes, and the Braveheart soundtrack is amazing.”

Toulouse has no personal connection to Scotland, but says Paper Cult has “a lot of connections with Scottish people” and works with writers who visit friends in Scotland every year. “We’re really trying to involve Scottish people in the project,” he adds, noting that the dialogue, in particular, will be of interest to Scots who still remember the terrible tragedy. Narration of William Wallace’s election campaign Age of Empires II users will be relieved to hear this.

Paper Cult has been working on Tears of Metal for around four years, but the release date is still a long way off, slated for next year. But since the game was revealed at Summer Game Fest in early June, Toulouse has been amazed by the audience’s response. He says it has been added to wishlists on Steam more than 100,000 times. “Within the first few days, we had over 100,000 people added to wishlists,” he says. [after the announcement]we surpassed [our previous game] “This is my lifetime wish list for Bloodroots,” Toulouse says with a hint of excitement. “I’m super excited.”

Source: www.theguardian.com

Review of Still Wakes the Deep – The Terrifying Entity on a 1970s Scottish Oil Rig | Video Games

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TThe film’s premise is a classic of the genre: one day, workers on the oil rig Beira D hit something with their drill, and soon a nameless monster descends on the vessel, killing the crew one by one. At the same time, Glaswegian electrician Cameron “Caz” McCreary is already on the verge of leaving the rig, having been fired from his remote workplace where he took refuge from the police after a huge bar fight. It is in his work boots that we step on as he desperately searches for a way out.

The team behind Still Wakes the Deep is hardly the same as The Chinese Room, the developer behind previous hits Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, both of which share the same trademark high visual fidelity, realistic soundwork, and emotive acting. Still Wakes the Deep is set on perhaps the most realistic oil rig ever seen in media, down to the hundreds of tiny hissing valves and labyrinthine metal staircases that groan dangerously. This wouldn’t be the place for health and safety talk, even without the terror looming from the deep, and the rig is by far the game’s most prominent character.

Still Wakes the Deep is also probably the most Scottish game you’ll ever play, and there’s a surprising amount of it. Each snippet of dialogue is a great example of how natural conversation should be, whether Kaz is talking to his few remaining colleagues or reflecting on the events that led him to Beira D. But at around six hours, the game is short, and there isn’t enough time for character development beyond a perfunctory introduction, which makes it hard to empathize with the characters, and isn’t helped by the clumsy device of having several characters call you in succession only to die over the phone.




The most realistic oil rig ever made in media…and yet it awakens the deep sea. Photo: Incognito mode

This is one of The Chinese Room’s most interactive games, doing more than just walking around and looking at things. But its gameplay design has one big problem: me, the savvy player. All of Still Wakes’ gameplay devices are used in so many games that I couldn’t help but groan the first time I saw yellow paint splattered on a ledge to grab onto. After that, yellow is everywhere: yellow tarps showing you where to climb, yellow edges on targets you can jump through, etc. Beira D goes from an interesting maze to a smooth parkour course.

When enemies appear, Caz can’t fight them; instead, he must sneak through them. Areas are littered with crouching spaces and items you can throw as distractions, and they’re often in rooms that you’ll need to cross multiple times before you can take cover. Ideally, this should be a source of tension, but as with navigation, the game makes it very clear what’s coming (and what’s going: at one point a rig worker literally shouts across a loud, echoing room that a monster is actually leaving), so there’s little you can do as the player other than follow the path.




Still awaken the abyss. Photo: Incognito mode

I was frustrated when I found the light from my headlamp didn’t bother the monsters, making it incredibly easy to sneak around. Or I’d fail a jump for purely camera-related reasons and have to listen to McCreary swear as he falls to his death multiple times, and I felt the tension melt away. The ever-present desire to help the player contrasts with horror games’ need to leave us in the dark sometimes. Every time the illusion crumbled, I left the game to put up with just to see what would happen to a character I wasn’t particularly attached to.

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Still Wakes the Deep manages to create an atmospheric portrait of an ordinary person with no special skills simply trying to survive in the harshest environment imaginable, but there aren’t enough real scares or compelling moments to make it memorable beyond that.

Source: www.theguardian.com