Subway Car in China

Photos from the National Geographic

A few of the entries into National Geographic Society's photography contest:

بط

Miniature People

Miniature People Dealing With Everyday Life Objects by Thai Designer Poy.  More @ http://www.whudat.de/miniature-people-dealing-with-everyday-life-objects-by-thai-designer-poy/

CITY AM -- A bright, robotic future

CITY AM -- A bright, robotic future

The Dispatch & Delivery Robots will be followed by armed, Enforcement & Security Robots whose remit will be to Taser any yobs/ thieves/ tramps that might try to damage/ steal/ derail the delivery robots.

I like the idea.

The aim should be to make humans entirely redundant. They get in the way.

BM

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Forget delivery vans or even using your legs to walk to the shops for that matter. The founders of Skype plan to shake-up the grocery delivery market with a fleet of self-driving robots that will be able to drop groceries on your doorstep within 30 minutes.

Starship Technologies, founded by Skype’s Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, has invented a robot that can whizz down pavements at a speed of around four miles per hour with up two shopping bags or parcels (20lbs) stored inside of it. [...]

http://www.cityam.com/227817/skype-founders-take-on-24-hour-delivery-market-with-launch-of-self-driving-robot-?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=Email&utm_campaign=151103_CMU

 

www.cityam.com

Skype founders take on 24-delivery with self-driving robot 

The $35 Computer

From the Popular Mechanics magazine - April 2013:


http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/how-to/a8807/35-computer-the-vast-possibilities-of-raspberry-pi-15294806/

How To Build Your Own Cockroach Cyborg

From the Popular Science Magazine - January 2013:


http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-12/how-build-your-own-cockroach-cyborg

What happens if robots take the jobs?

From the Brookings Institution (www.brookings.edu) a research paper by Darrell M. West on "What happens if robots take the jobs?"

We read:

"Automation is appearing everywhere. Ready or not, innovations like robotics, computerized algorithms, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, medical sensors and machine-to-machine communications, 3-D printing, and autonomous vehicles will increasingly transform the global economy, even displacing many in the human workforce."

The synopsis is @ http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/10/26-robots-emerging-technologies-public-policy-west

and the research paper may be accessed @ http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2015/10/26-robots-emerging-technologies-public-policy-west/robotwork.pdf

Data Visualization with Dance

This is an idea that I tried to get patented but was denied by USPTO  (see please http://www.google.com/patents/US20100039434 ).  Nevertheless, I think the idea has merit (say in visualization of the dance of life within a cell) and I am sharing it here, hoping others would pick it up and run with it.

Data Visualization with Dance

The core idea is to visualize statistical properties of single and multi-variate data by means of dance movements of computer generated animation figures.

Traditional visualizations utilize basic dimensions of graphical representation to portray multi-modal time-varying data: color, shape, size, and location. The dimensionality of these representations is limited and their aesthetic quality on the whole is generic. Moreover, the visualization is often static, the time dimension is "frozen-out".  This IDF aims to make improvements to the visual display of time-varying data.

The first computerized dance notation system, which displayed an animated figure on the screen which performed the dance moves specified by the choreographer, was the DOM dance notation system, created by Eddie Dombrower on the Apple II personal computer in 1982. (See Dance Notation Journal, Fall, 1986, 4(2) pp. 47-48.)  This solution consisted of a single figure, and the movements of that figure were not based on any external data sources or their statistical properties.

There are numerous COTS packages used in Web Design and Electronic Games industry that enable one to create figures and to animate and display those figures.  I envision leveraging such tools in building this system.

I propose there to use the language of dance in particular and the language of movement in general to visualize statistical properties of single and multi-variate time varying data.  These streams of data may originate from sensors, from real-time structured and un-structured data, or may be the outputs of forecasting calculations.

My approach consists of several steps.  Through a user interface, a user selects the data stream(s) that he wishes to visualize using dance. Next, he uses software based tools to create a figure the movements of whose limbs are going to indicate the data and its statistical properties.  For each data stream he will create a distinct figure.  The figures will differ in color, shape, and size thus visually indicating the distinct time-varying data streams that are being visualized.

The system saves the results of the figure creation.

Next, the user, will choreograph these figures based on statistical properties of the data.  For example, the user may decide to assign specific dance moves to those figures for which the data streams are beyond a certain threshold as defined by the mean-value of the data, or as defined by degrees from the standard deviation of that mean.  Or the user may decide to indicate those data streams that have positive correlations with one another by figures that dance with and around each other in close proximity of one another- depending on the degree of the correlation.  In a similar manner, the user may choreograph these figures with dance steps so that other statistical properties of data are thereby indicated - higher moments of the distribution function and so on.

The user will input the choreography in the form of one of the available dance notation systems such as Labanotation system or the Sutton Movement system.  An embodiment of this invention using the Sutton Movement system enables inclusion of skate-boarding, pantomime, gymnastics and other such activities as ways of indicating time-varying data.  The user connects his dance choreography with the statistical properties of the time-varying data through this interface.

The system saves the results of the choreography which consists of dance movements as well as statistical properties that trigger those movements and guide them.

At this stage, the user has accomplished 3 tasks: he has created figures, he has identified his data streams with specific figures, and he has choreographed dance moves for each figure based on the statistical properties of (potentially all of) these time-varying data streams.

Next the user indicates to the system to animate these figures based on the input data streams and the dance moves that were choreographed and saved earlier.  The system will begin processing the data stream(s) and compute the statistical properties of the time-varying data.  Based on these statistical properties, the system will automatically load the figure from its data store and invoke the corresponding dance movements for each figure (data stream).  The system will then display animated dancing figures on a display device that indicate the statistical properties of the data stream(s).

The display device and the delivery of the images is not part of this; those task scan be accomplished through WEB, Client-Server, Mobile, or other architectures and technologies.

Web References:

1. http://www.movementwriting.org/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labanotation
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_notation
4. http://www.aegean.gr/culturaltec/webdance/

Journal Articles:

1. Eddie Dombrower, Dance Notation Journal, Fall, 1986, 4(2) pp. 47-48.
2. M. Cunningham, Changes/Notes on Choreography, F. Starr, ed., Something Else Press, 1968.
3. D. Tolani, A. Goswami, and N. Badler, "Real-Time Inverse Kinematics Techniques for Anthropomorphic Limbs," Graphical Models, vol. 62, no. 5, 2000, pp. 353-388; .
4. M. Van de Panne, "From Footprints to Animation," Computer Graphics Forum, vol. 16, no. 4, 1997, pp. 211-223.
5.  L. Wilke et al., "Animating the Dance Archives," Proc. 4th Int'l Symp. Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Intelligent Cultural Heritage (VAST), Eurographics Assoc., 2003, pp. 91-99.
6. M. Nakamura, "Text Representation of Labanotation Data for Computer Based Motion Analysis," presented at the World Dance Assoc./Int'l Council of Kinetography Laban/Congress on Research in Dance Int'l Conf., 2004; (http://www.imb.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/~hachihachi_e.html)
7. A. Hutchinson Guest, Labanotation: The System of Analyzing and Recording Movement, Taylor and Francis, 1987.
8. Tom Calvert , Lars Wilke, Rhonda Ryman, Ilene Fox, “Applications of Computers to Dance”, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications  March/April 2005 (Vol. 25, No. 2)   pp. 6-12.
9. “A Prototype Program for Visualization of Dance Performances Using 3DCG Motion Database”,
10. Umino Bin(Fac. of Socil., Toyo Univ.)   Soga Asako (Ryukoku Univ. Fac. Sci. and Technol.)  
11. IPSJ SIG Technical Reports, ISSN:0919-6072, VOL.2006;NO.85(CH-71);PAGE.41-46(2006)

 

Books:

1. Anne Hutchinson-Guest's, Choreographics (1989),
2. Eshkol, Noa & Wachmann, Abraham, Movement Notation (1958)

Patent:

“Dance visualization of music”, United States Patent 6717042

Abstract:

An apparatus is equipped to provide dance visualization of a stream of music. The apparatus is equipped with a sampler to generate characteristic data for a plurality of samples of a received stream of music, and an analyzer to determine a music type for the stream of music using the generated characteristic data. The apparatus is further provided with a player to manifest a plurality of dance movements for the stream of music in accordance with the determined music type of the stream of music.

 

Resolving Windows 10 Wi-Fi Connectivity Problem

I performed a clean installation of MS Windows 10 (64-bit) on a Dell Inspiron machine and lost Wi-Fi connectivity. The card was a Broadcom 802.11n.

I resolved the problem by uninstalling all the protocols that had been installed, such as "Client for Microsoft Networks" and keeping only the IPV4 and IPV6 protocols.  (In fact, the option to uninstall them was not available, it was grayed out.)


That worked and I have not experienced any Wi-Fi connectivity problems since.

Hacking A Traffic Signal

Researchers Demo Hack to Seize Control of Municipal Traffic Signal Systems in a Michigan city:

http://www.eecs.umich.edu/eecs/about/articles/2014/Green-Lights-Forever.html

and the paper:

https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/traffic-woot14.pdf

Invisible Sensing

Invisible Sensing of Vehicle Steering with Smartphones:

https://kabru.eecs.umich.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/VSense.pdf

More Habits of Employable Developers:

More Habits of Employable Developers:



http://sdtimes.com/code-watch-the-final-habits-of-highly-employable-developers/ 


I would like to add that there is life after programming; in Requirements Engineering, in Application & Solution Architecture, and in Sales Support.

Angular vs. Knockout

FYI:


http://blog.nebithi.com/knockoutjs-vs-angularjs/

SIVO Python Distribution (SIVO-PyD)

IVO-PyD (from NASA) is a self-contained Python distribution that includes a set of Python related packages for scientific computing. It attempts to provide a simple and but robust alternative to the Enthought Python Distribution.  Find it @ https://modelingguru.nasa.gov/docs/DOC-2109.

Measuring Cyber-security Success at the Summit

From Center for Strategic and International Studies:


http://csis.org/publication/measuring-cybersecurity-success-summit

  

"If press reports are accurate, it is a welcome development that the United States and China (in response to the threat of sanctions) have begun ..."

NetLogo

NetLogo is a multi-agent programmable modeling environment. It is used by tens of thousands of students, teachers and researchers worldwide. It also powers HubNet participatory simulations. It is authored by Uri Wilensky and developed at the CCL. You can download it free of charge.   Find it @ https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ 


The book "An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling: Modeling Natural, Social, and Engineered Complex Systems with NetLogo" provides an introduction to one of the primary methodologies for research in this new field of knowledge and uses NetLogo in its exercises.

Military Applications of the Internet-of-Things

From the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

http://csis.org/publication/leveraging-internet-things-more-efficient-and-effective-military

4 Habits of Highly Employable Developers

http://sdtimes.com/code-watch-the-first-four-habits-of-highly-employable-developers/

Intimate robots on the march

BBC -- They do what you want, and they don't talk back

The idea that it will be possible to stop the development of sex robots seems fanciful, given the explosion in so-called 'adult' content on the internet, and all the rest of it.


Next week: Japanese company develops My Perfect Girlfriend, a robot that does not do sex and small talk, but irons her man's shirts, hoovers his flat, does the cooking/ washing, and never complains. If you get bored, you can re-programme My Perfect Girlfriend so that she may start arguments and cry at given times (e.g.: once every 12 hours). When it gets too much, unplug the machine and re-set it.

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A campaign has been launched calling for a ban on the development of robots that can be used for sex. Such a use of the technology is unnecessary and undesirable, said campaign leader Dr Kathleen Richardson. Sex dolls already on the market are becoming more sophisticated and some are now hoping to build artificial intelligence into their products.

 

Those working in the field say that there is a need for such robots.

Dr Richardson, a robot ethicist at De Montfort University in Leicester, wants to raise awareness of the issue and persuade those developing sex robots to rethink how their technology is used. [...]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34118482

Humanoid robots falling over

BBC

In the video-clip, one robot struggles to open a door and a few others fall over, which is somewhat reassuring: they are not quite there yet.
 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33041149


Robots have been competing on a Pentagon obstacle course at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds.

Team Kaist of South Korea defeated 22 others to win the top $2m (£1.3m) prize from the US Department of Defense's Darpa research unit with its DRC-Hubo humanoid robot. Just keeping upright seemed a challenge in itself for some of the metallic competitors, as BBC World TV reports.