Attending the 4th Annual International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds

The Internet of Sounds

The Internet of Sounds is all about leveraging existing Internet of Things (IoT) devices & networks with a priority on audio and musical applications. The IoS Research Network is an emerging group of academics and industry partners looking to push this domain towards new innovation and opportunities.

You can read more about the IoS Research Network as well as the International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds here: https://internetofsounds.net/.

Traveling to Pisa

It is approximately 5700 kilometers as the crow files from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Pisa, Italy. As it turns out, traveling between two relatively small cities is not as simple as it seems.

I began by travel day by taking a ~2 hour flight into YUL (Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau), then after a two hour layover I hopped on a ~8 hour red-eye flight from YUL to FCO (Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino). Due to the 5 hour time difference, it was 3am my time when the flight attendants came around with breakfast and coffee, so despite not sleeping much on the plane, I figured I would start my day then.

After landing at FCO, it was a 30 minute express train to Roma Termini (the biggest and most central station in Rome). The train ride was uneventful, but it was nice to be on my way to the city. Once I arrived at Termini, I had about an hour until my connecting train to Pisa. I went for a quick walk outside, and was surprised to see that the very first business outside of the train-station was a McDonald’s (clearly targeting a certain touristy clientele). I grabbed a quick coffee and cornetto (croissant, and the only word I was comfortable with after 2 weeks of Italian lessons on Duolingo) before boarding my next train.

The train ride to Pisa took about 4 hours, but I was thrilled that the route we took went up alongside the Tyrrhenian sea. The water was quite choppy, but the views were still amazing. Four hours on the train went by fast (thanks to a few intermitted jet-lagged induced naps) and before I knew it, I had arrived at Pisa Centrale. Pisa is really not that big of a city, and so I was able to walk to my AirBnB in about 15 minutes.

After getting situated in my AirBnB, I met up with my supervisor and walked to the most famous landmark in Pisa before grabbing some delicious dinner at a local restaurant.

The Conference

The 4th Annual International Symposium on the Internet of Sounds was a two day conference with great keynote speakers, presentations, poster sessions and demo sessions. It was excellent to listen to all of the presentations and see what kinds of work are happening in this field at institutions across the world.

Poster Presentations

I presented two posters at the conference, on on each day. I was grateful for how many people stopped by to talk about my research. It was great to hear how many questions people had, especially with regards to future work as I have asked myself many of the same questions about “whats next”.

You can read more about the posters I presented (and papers they are based on) by visting these links.

• FAUSTMapper: Facilitating Complex Mappings for Smart Musical Instruments
• Creating Latent Representations of Synthesizer Patches using Variational Autoencoders

Best Poster Award

I was surprised and honored to win the Best Poster Award at the IS2 conference for my FAUSTMapper work. A big thank you goes to the organizing committee for awarding me this, I super appreciate it!

Tourist Time

After the conference concluded, I hopped back on the train from Pisa Centrale to Roma Termini and spent the following 3 days exploring as much of Rome as I could in that short period of time.

I toured the Colosseum and Roman Forum, visited the Trevi Fountain & Spanish Steps and made it inside the Pantheon! I also wined and dined at many excellent restaurants in the evenings, enjoying incredible pastas and red wines. One of my favorite ways to see the city was by E-Bike, where I could rent directly from the Uber App and be instantly onboard a powered bicycle cruising between historical landmarks.

I really enjoyed Rome, but felt like I barely scratched the surface of all there was to see.

I’ll be back!

Photos

Here are some additional photos from my trip.

One of many many coffees!

Inside the Colosseum!

Exploring the Pantheon!

Visiting the Trevi Fountain!

About to walk up the Spanish Steps!

A required pose in Pisa!