Thursday, October 30, 2014
Monday, October 6, 2014
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Chicago: City of Big Data presented by Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago: City of Big Data presented by Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago: City of Big Data
Your Digital Data Trail
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Your Digital Data Trail
Chicago Architecture Foundation
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
BBC News - Nasa equips space robots with smartphones
BBC News - Nasa equips space robots with smartphones
The robots, known as Spheres (Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental satellites), currently have limited capabilities.
It is hoped the smartphones, powered by Google's Project Tango, will equip the robots with more functionality.
The robots have been described by experts as "incredibly clever".
When Nasa's robots first arrived at the International Space Station in 2006, they were only capable of precise movements using small jets of CO2, which propelled the devices forwards at around an inch per second.
"We wanted to add communication, a camera, increase the processing capability, accelerometers and other sensors," Spheres project manager Chris Provencher told Reuters.
"As we were scratching our heads thinking about what to do, we realised the answer was in our hands. Let's just use smartphones."
In an attempt to make the robots smarter and of more use to astronauts, engineers at Nasa's Ames Research Centre sent cheap smartphones to the space station, which they had purchased from Best Buy, an American electronics shop.
Astronauts then attached the phones to the Spheres, giving them more visual and sensing capabilities. Helping astronauts. Looking to further improve the robots, Nasa turned to Google's Project Tango.
Tango uses the 3D cameras embedded in Google's latest smartphones to give the handset a human-scale understanding of space and motion.
Once at the space station and attached to the Spheres, the phones will use their onboard motion-tracking cameras and infrared depth sensors to safely navigate around the ISS.
These more advanced phones will be launched into space on 11 July and are intended to replace the earlier models.
Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC: "This is an incredibly clever way to unite different technologies in an unexpected way.
"It will be interesting to see how much this inspires Google to use this technology for its own robotics development following on the several world-class robot companies it has purchased in the last year."
Dr Fumiya Iida, lecturer at the department of engineering at the University of Cambridge, praised Nasa's ingenuity.
"Robots were and still are usually very expensive and complex, thus they often don't match to a cost-benefit balance. By using consumer electronics such as smartphones, we can significantly reduce down the development cost for robots with high-performance capabilities which were not possible 10 years ago."
Nasa envisions a future in which its spatially-aware Spheres can help astronauts with daily chores and risky tasks.
Dr Walterio Mayo of Bristol University's Robotics Lab told the BBC that the basic idea behind the mapping system, a technique known as Slam (simultaneous localisation and mapping), was developed substantially in the UK ten years ago.
He said that while the robots are an impressive start, they currently have no arms, which could limit their potential.
The Spheres' creators are said to have been inspired by Luke Skywalker's training droid, from the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, although it is unlikely lasers will be fitted to the device.
Nasa plans to send Google's 3D
smartphones into space to function as the "eyes and brains" of free-flying
robots inside the Space Station.
The robots, known as Spheres (Synchronised Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental satellites), currently have limited capabilities.
It is hoped the smartphones, powered by Google's Project Tango, will equip the robots with more functionality.
The robots have been described by experts as "incredibly clever".
When Nasa's robots first arrived at the International Space Station in 2006, they were only capable of precise movements using small jets of CO2, which propelled the devices forwards at around an inch per second.
"We wanted to add communication, a camera, increase the processing capability, accelerometers and other sensors," Spheres project manager Chris Provencher told Reuters.
"As we were scratching our heads thinking about what to do, we realised the answer was in our hands. Let's just use smartphones."
In an attempt to make the robots smarter and of more use to astronauts, engineers at Nasa's Ames Research Centre sent cheap smartphones to the space station, which they had purchased from Best Buy, an American electronics shop.
Astronauts then attached the phones to the Spheres, giving them more visual and sensing capabilities. Helping astronauts. Looking to further improve the robots, Nasa turned to Google's Project Tango.
Tango uses the 3D cameras embedded in Google's latest smartphones to give the handset a human-scale understanding of space and motion.
Once at the space station and attached to the Spheres, the phones will use their onboard motion-tracking cameras and infrared depth sensors to safely navigate around the ISS.
These more advanced phones will be launched into space on 11 July and are intended to replace the earlier models.
Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, told the BBC: "This is an incredibly clever way to unite different technologies in an unexpected way.
"It will be interesting to see how much this inspires Google to use this technology for its own robotics development following on the several world-class robot companies it has purchased in the last year."
Dr Fumiya Iida, lecturer at the department of engineering at the University of Cambridge, praised Nasa's ingenuity.
"Robots were and still are usually very expensive and complex, thus they often don't match to a cost-benefit balance. By using consumer electronics such as smartphones, we can significantly reduce down the development cost for robots with high-performance capabilities which were not possible 10 years ago."
Nasa envisions a future in which its spatially-aware Spheres can help astronauts with daily chores and risky tasks.
Dr Walterio Mayo of Bristol University's Robotics Lab told the BBC that the basic idea behind the mapping system, a technique known as Slam (simultaneous localisation and mapping), was developed substantially in the UK ten years ago.
He said that while the robots are an impressive start, they currently have no arms, which could limit their potential.
The Spheres' creators are said to have been inspired by Luke Skywalker's training droid, from the film Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, although it is unlikely lasers will be fitted to the device.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Lync's Tales from the Trenches for the Enteprise CONNECT Lync Tour 2014 Chicago
Enterprise CONNECT
Lync Tour 2014 is on the road again to New York City on Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Microsoft’s Lync: Making the
Choice , Making it Work is still collecting Tales from the Trenches
nationwide, from the West Coast to the East Coast to share experts and end user
stories and advice which will facilitate understanding the influence and
application for enterprise decision-makers of the enterprise CONNECT Lync Tour
and its real-world impact and challenges associated with deploying Lync.
According to Fred Knight, the General Manager for UBM Tech,
“Lync is more than a technology. It is a
cultural change in the way people communicate with others via Microsoft’s
Lync.”
Kevin Kieller, enableUC is a Canadian software developer who
brings his own pragmatism to the enterprise CONNECT Lync Tour 2014 and leads
the Tales from the Trenches Panel discussion.
The Tales from the Trenches Panel also addresses the biggest,
most paralyzing mistakes users make with Lync.
For instance, the Lync video streaming is a two-way channel which can
remain idle on a blank screen, until it is initiated by the end-user. One of the Lync clients forgot that the
previous group video had left Lync ON during a conversation in his office. When the Lync video screen became activated
by another end-user who commented that he had watched the first client’s
exchange conversation in response to their previous Lynch video meetings. Lync can also double as an office two-way
Video/Voice communications which evolves into a highly sophisticated surveillance
monitoring system for remote and virtual end-users.
Lync multi-tasks as an ubiquitous Voice and Multimedia
Communications Business Tool. There is
a rising need for training users to interface with enterprise CONNECT Lync
Video/Voice Conference.
Depending on the enterprise CONNECT Lync Tour stop, the
Tales from the Trenches Panel session will include a mix of local end-users and
other experts who can share their experiences and offer real-world advice with
your Lync 2013 decisions and actions for Microsoft upgrades. Skype users must sign into Skype using a
Microsoft ID and have the latest Skype client software. V2 of the Lync-Skype integration (Beta is for
the Summer or Fall 2014). Look for Video
Interoperability with improved security signaling and media streaming, as well
as improved audio (wide-band audio with Silk).
The new Lync 2013 features include Lync Web Apps, Lync
Mobile, and a Better Video Experience.
It is not too late to join the enterprise CONNECT Lync Tour set for New York City on Tuesday,
June 24, 2014.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Amazon launches a shopping machine and calls it a phone - Quartz
Amazon launches a shopping machine and calls it a phone - Quartz
Amazon’s Fire Phone is here: CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the company’s first smartphone at an event today in Seattle. Details are still rolling in, but Bezos has already made one thing clear: This is a shopping device.
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The most interesting feature so far is called Firefly: An image recognition app that can supposedly detect and identify more than 100 million items, ranging from physical products on sale at Amazon—Bezos demonstrated the feature with a Nutella jar, among other products—to songs and phone numbers. The phone has a dedicated Firefly button on its side, meaning that the feature—and your credit card—is always only a tap away.
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Amazon is also opening the service to developers so they can build Firefly into their apps. Two examples, via the Verge’s Fire Phone liveblog: Using MyFitnessPal to get nutritional information for food or Vivino to get more information about wine. This could be one way to get companies creating custom apps for the Fire Phone’s app store instead of just porting over their plain Android apps.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2014 | Orlando, FL | CIO Conference
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2014 | Orlando, FL | CIO Conference
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. Our 2014 agenda offers 500+ analyst sessions, workshops, roundtables and mastermind keynotes across five full days. With 10 role-based tracks and 11 industry tracks, the agenda targets your specific title responsibilities and ways to adapt new ideas and strategy to your industry, along with insight on what's next in IT.
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. Our 2014 agenda offers 500+ analyst sessions, workshops, roundtables and mastermind keynotes across five full days. With 10 role-based tracks and 11 industry tracks, the agenda targets your specific title responsibilities and ways to adapt new ideas and strategy to your industry, along with insight on what's next in IT.
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