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Do or Do Not · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Everybody has to start somewhere. To become a
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  Speaker 1: great leader or an expert in a particular field takes
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  Speaker 1: years of experience. A person doesn't go from an entry
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  Speaker 1: level position to the corner office overnight. One must work
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  Speaker 1: their way up the ranks until they reach the top. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: some doors are closed so tight you can't even get
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  Speaker 1: a toe in, let alone a whole foot. Sometimes you
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  Speaker 1: have to take matters into your own hand. Ends to
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  Speaker 1: get noticed, like James Dyson, who was so angry that
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  Speaker 1: his vacuum kept breaking, he took it apart to see
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  Speaker 1: how it worked. It turned out that a critical design
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  Speaker 1: flaw was the cause of his problems, so he got
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  Speaker 1: to work on a new kind of vacuum design, and
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  Speaker 1: unlike the other models on the market, his didn't need
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  Speaker 1: a bag. Dyson built over five thousand prototypes before finding
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  Speaker 1: one that worked, doors were shut in his face, Manufacturers
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  Speaker 1: refused to make it, and retailers wouldn't carry it in
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  Speaker 1: their stores. It took a long long time before those
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  Speaker 1: stores and their customers saw the benefits of a Dyson vacuum,
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  Speaker 1: but once they did, the rest was history. Stewart Freeborn
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  Speaker 1: was another person with a dream, one that he was
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  Speaker 1: going to make come true, no matter what it took.
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  Speaker 1: Born in London in nineteen fourteen, Freeborn was fascinated with makeup,
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  Speaker 1: but not the fashion kind. The idea of dressing up
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  Speaker 1: to look like someone or something else fascinated him, and
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  Speaker 1: as he got older, he grew into did in the
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  Speaker 1: chemistry of different plastics, learning how they were made and
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  Speaker 1: how they affected the human skin when applied, and he
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  Speaker 1: knew exactly how he wanted to put his experience to
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  Speaker 1: use in the movies. Freeborn's father, an insurance broker, begged
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  Speaker 1: him to join the family business, but Stewart couldn't shake
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  Speaker 1: his love of movie magic. He even started sneaking onto
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  Speaker 1: the lots of shows whenever he was able to, and
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  Speaker 1: just like Dyson in his early days, no one was interested.
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  Speaker 1: Refusing to give up, Freeborn made a bold move in Nive,
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  Speaker 1: he called up the local newspapers and studios to let
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  Speaker 1: them know that Highly Selassie, the Emperor of Ethiopia, had
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  Speaker 1: arrived in London. Not long after, the Emperor was seen
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  Speaker 1: driving around Freeborn's neighborhood, that is, until the police detained him.
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  Speaker 1: Unfortunately for them, all they had caught was an ambitious
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  Speaker 1: young makeup artist in a fake beard and nose prosthetic
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  Speaker 1: looking for his big break, and his stunt didn't even
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  Speaker 1: land him a job. It wasn't until a British director
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  Speaker 1: named Alexander Korda took a chance on him, giving Freeborn
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  Speaker 1: some work on period dramas being filmed at the time.
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  Speaker 1: One of his first major productions was that of a
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  Speaker 1: nineteen forty eight adaptation of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.
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  Speaker 1: The role of Fagin would be played by Alec Guinness,
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  Speaker 1: someone whom Freeborn would work with again on such films
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  Speaker 1: as The Bridge Over the River Quai in nineteen fifty seven,
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  Speaker 1: as well as a little science fiction film being shot
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  Speaker 1: in the Tunessee and Deserts in nineteen seventy seven. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Freeborn was responsible for many of Star Wars colorful characters,
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  Speaker 1: including one fan favorite. In particular, Concept artist Ralph mcquarie
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  Speaker 1: had imagined Han Solo's loyal Wookie partner, Chewbacca, as a
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  Speaker 1: seven foot tall monster with a misshapen head, yellow eyes,
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  Speaker 1: sharp teeth, of vests and boots. Freeborn put his own
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  Speaker 1: spin on the character, making him more doglike in appearance
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  Speaker 1: and replacing his vest with the bandalier. The result was
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  Speaker 1: a gentle giant with an iconic growl who would go
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  Speaker 1: on to save the galaxy numerous times. The film's sequel, however,
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  Speaker 1: had a unique problem. A new creature was needed, and
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  Speaker 1: it too was required to look unique, something to set
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  Speaker 1: it apart from the other characters that Freeborn had designed,
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  Speaker 1: and so he turned to two unlikely places from which
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  Speaker 1: to draw inspiration. A mirror at a photograph of Albert Einstein.
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  Speaker 1: Upon seeing his own reflection, Freeborn noticed the topography of
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  Speaker 1: his face, how the lines and bumps told the story.
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  Speaker 1: He was older and more experienced than he had been
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  Speaker 1: in his youth, and he lost so much of his hair.
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  Speaker 1: As for Einstein, it was his eyes that had captivated
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  Speaker 1: the artist the most. They were the eyes of a
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  Speaker 1: quiet and wise man, and they were surrounded by Wrinkles.
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  Speaker 1: Freeborn combined all the features the creases of his own
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  Speaker 1: weathered face with Einstein's sunken eyes to create one of
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  Speaker 1: the most recognizable characters in the entire Star Wars universe,
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  Speaker 1: the two foot tall Jedi master Yoda. The funny thing
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  Speaker 1: about technology is that not only is it constantly changing,
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  Speaker 1: it's changing us as well. How we work and the
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  Speaker 1: way we think are ever evolving thanks to Breakthrough is
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  Speaker 1: happening every day. Telephones used to be bound to wires
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  Speaker 1: in our homes and offices. As satellites and wireless technology
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  Speaker 1: spread across the world, landlines gave way to cell phones. Today,
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  Speaker 1: the devices we carry in our pockets are no longer
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  Speaker 1: used only for voice communication. We record our lives using
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  Speaker 1: their built in cameras. We can look up any fact
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  Speaker 1: on the Internet, or post our every thought in two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and forty characters or less. In other words, we've
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  Speaker 1: come a long way today. We're the ones doing the changing.
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  Speaker 1: The more we share about our lives, the more selfies
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  Speaker 1: we post and ads we pick up on, the more
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  Speaker 1: our technology learns about us, our behavior, years are buying habits,
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  Speaker 1: even what we look like. This information can be used
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  Speaker 1: to influence the things we purchase or make it easy
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  Speaker 1: for governments to track us down. But for Hasashi Canby,
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  Speaker 1: it made it easier to identify pastries. Cambay founded Brain
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  Speaker 1: Company Ltd. In n after spending several years designing computerized
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  Speaker 1: graphics systems. His work could be seen on nightly news
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  Speaker 1: programs displaying baseball scores and monetary exchange rates. From there,
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  Speaker 1: Camba moved on to digitizing the textile industry. He replaced
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  Speaker 1: the handwritten card system that had been used to program
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  Speaker 1: looms with an automated computer program. This resulted in fewer
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  Speaker 1: mistakes and less wasted fabric. As the years progressed, Brain
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  Speaker 1: continued to innovate with applications for bridge engineers, students, and
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  Speaker 1: other kinds of textile manufacturers. But it was in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand seven when everything changed. A restaurant chain was about
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  Speaker 1: to venture into the baking business, and if it wanted
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  Speaker 1: to compete, it had to offer a wide variety of pastries. Now,
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  Speaker 1: in America, a bakery might sell a handful of different
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  Speaker 1: kinds of cookies, cakes, and other goods. In Japan, though,
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  Speaker 1: the most successful pastry shops sold hundreds of varieties. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: that success came with complication. Most items were sold without
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  Speaker 1: wrappers or bar codes, meaning cashiers had to memorize the
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  Speaker 1: look and price of each pastry. They also had to
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  Speaker 1: handle each individual item, and this process led along lines
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  Speaker 1: and contamination by the cashiers. There had to be a
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  Speaker 1: better way, and the Brain Company was going to find it.
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  Speaker 1: They got to work on an artificial intelligence program to
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  Speaker 1: assist in identifying pastries on a conveyor belt. It used
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  Speaker 1: multiple algorithms to detect the features of different kinds of
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  Speaker 1: baked goods, something they referred to as computer vision, but
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  Speaker 1: it was a tough task. For example, a croissant might
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  Speaker 1: not always be crescent shaped, and some pastries looked just
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  Speaker 1: like others in shape and size, the only difference being
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  Speaker 1: their fillings or if they had sugar on top. Can
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  Speaker 1: bas team kept working, though, even as the two thousand
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  Speaker 1: eight financial crisis threatened to shut them down for good,
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  Speaker 1: and as other projects lost funding due to budget cuts.
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  Speaker 1: He poured one percent of his remaining resources into the
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  Speaker 1: pastry project. Brain rewrote its algorithms, weaving them together with
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  Speaker 1: complicated camera systems and lights. They also accounted for variations
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  Speaker 1: like if a doughnut got split in half on the
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  Speaker 1: conveyor belt, with the program know that two pieces were
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  Speaker 1: meant to go together, or if multiple items were touching,
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  Speaker 1: would it understand that they weren't. One giant pastry can
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  Speaker 1: based team had it covered. By the time they were finished,
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  Speaker 1: the Bakery Scan platform was able to recognize dozens of
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  Speaker 1: varieties of pastries with ninety eight percent accuracy, and it
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  Speaker 1: was always learning too. The more the cashiers helped in
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  Speaker 1: identifying questionable scans at the checkout line, the better the
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  Speaker 1: program got it recognizing them the next time around. Bakery
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  Speaker 1: Scan was a breakthrough, but it was only the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: Another challenge was on the horizon, and it was about
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  Speaker 1: to take Cambay's brain from the conveyor belt to the
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  Speaker 1: oncology ward you see. Ten years after bakery Scans inception,
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  Speaker 1: a doctor at Kyoto's Louis Pasture Center for Medical Research
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  Speaker 1: saw a story about it on the news. The concept
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  Speaker 1: intrigued him as someone who spent years looking at cancer
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  Speaker 1: cells up close, because under the microscope they kind of
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  Speaker 1: looked like bread, and he wondered if Canby's technology could
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  Speaker 1: be used outside of the bakery and inside his research facility.
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  Speaker 1: So Brain modified the algorithms, and with the little engineering,
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  Speaker 1: the new platform dubbed AI scan could now detect a
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  Speaker 1: single cancer cell among a microscope slide full of other
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  Speaker 1: healthier cells with accuracy. Today, this AI tech is being
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  Speaker 1: used across all sorts of different industries like automotive and
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  Speaker 1: even jet engineering, and it's still saving lives in the
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  Speaker 1: medical field too, all thanks to a complicated request from
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  Speaker 1: a bakery. And I think the big your lesson here
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  Speaker 1: speaks for itself. Don't ever let people tell you that
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  Speaker 1: pastries aren't good for you. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Ye