Showing posts with label steps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steps. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The following steps in robotics and computer vision: a behavior analysis, situational awareness

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He wrote for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts, it would like you to read: the perils of externalization of knowledge | Generation I | Surveillant society | Select two | Frame war | Custom manifest | Our great sin his personal ????-coldewey.cc. ? Read More

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We have already seen some exciting developments recently in the areas of Robotics and computer vision. They are not so academic, as you would expect: huge tech successes as the Roomba and Kinect relied as clever algorithms and software as they have on marketing and retail locations. So what's next for our increasingly intelligent cameras, Web cameras, televisions and phones?

I talked with Dr. Anthony Hoogs, head of the computer vision research at Kitware, the company, which is a frequent partner of DARPA, NIH and other acronyms you would likely admit. we discussed that could be reasonably expected in the next few years, progress in this area.

Kitware is a member of what we could reasonably call third-party tech, one not often in the spotlight. HOOGS Research Department relies on Government contracts and DARPA grants. We generally cover funded by the companies and products, with the backing of the enterprise or corporate R&D budgets, which are often more high profile.

We wrote earlier about the need to make sense of all the data is carried out on the battlefield, that from a camera in each platoon at each vehicle and look down on each aircraft. And then there's an enormous amount of footage produced by internal monitoring: public and private security cameras, traffic cameras, etc., the number of manufactured all of these devices and media network is too large to effectively be controlled by man. That's where the Kitware.

The next step in computer vision, says Dr. Hoogs, is that they work: behavior analysis. Just as something like Kinect must distinguish between reach for chip bag and any number of gestures in surveillance footage, it must be determined whether something is interesting or not. "Interesting" is an incredibly complex concept, but almost is not as simple as setting thresholds on the movement and shape.

What works for the purposes of military Kitware and observation, however, would be equally at home in our own devices. Reduction of thousands of hours of footage of security up to a few minutes the footage is only one way to apply the algorithms and software that they make. Permission analysis occurs in real time is a breakthrough, which must occur in order to bring it into the living room. I asked whether the image sensors to better and more widely available made it easier, but it feels that the main catalyst for actually, better processors. I had to know: more sensors mean more data, but not necessarily useful data. At the same time, algorithms are already effectively Lower fidelity can work faster and more often.

It's already got things like point and shoot cameras that are trying to apply it to the useful functions and eventually simply by adding more and more rooms face detection. However, the potential is huge. The end result is that each camera will become effectively a robot with knowledge of, the possibility of tracking and classification of every object in its environs, waving and smiling face to draw particular attention to the ray or improperly parked car.

On the issue of privacy is becoming a problem. So far, Kitware largely relied on public databases for their research: images and videos, which sets out the rule of law. But as I wrote in the Surveillant society, law and social dogma things that consistently lag behind technology, and this is no exception. Home security cameras should be lead off-site database of "trusted" person? It should be around cameras record often comers and goers, but flag of strange people and vehicles? And will people act differently when they know their TV watching "them? This is a complex question, and fortunately one doctor Hoogs gets to avoid. Their work allows technology without applying with caution.

Kitware also releases a significant part of their work publicly and widely used; other companies like PrimeSense also hopes to become the de facto standard for new interfaces as depth control and object recognition.


(image source)

I asked that we could reasonably be expected in real products for the next year or two. Dr. Hoogs believes that virtualization and augmented reality will be the next wave of consumer goods to use it. Your phone already knows where he is facing, what are the businesses nearby, and so on. Early records, like Google goggles and Layar show potential, but the processing and infrastructure need to be updated before it hits big time.

Big push comes when companies need to reduce the gap between scientific findings and product. That means to put an end to the development and characteristics, something purely researchers may have trouble with ("it is finished!"). But as Microsoft showed with Kinect, and many other companies have with Intelligent image manipulation tech, opportunities for a product as great as possible just to move on the ground.


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Monday, October 10, 2011

Blog Fukushima robot operator removed – Online steps

Devin Coldewey is a Seattle-based writer and photographer. He wrote for the TechCrunch network since 2007. Some posts, it would like you to read: the perils of externalization of knowledge | Generation I | Surveillant society | Select two | Frame war | Custom manifest | Our great sin his personal ????-coldewey.cc. ? Read More

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An anonymous blogger known only as s.h. posting detailed descriptions of the daily efforts of response based on robot disaster at Fukushima. The blog includes technical details and personal anecdotes, but nothing sensitive to national security. However, in early July, the blog was discontinued and later deleted altogether. S.H. uploaded to YouTube videos have been made private. The origin of this clean up is not known, although of course it is understandable that bosses believed blog too revealing and asked that s.h. would accept him.

Something cannot be removed from the Internet without anyone noticing, however, particularly a blog like this, full of interesting and timely information related to efforts to curb the ongoing reactor. So when he disappeared, IEEE Spectrum undertook not only to keep the cached version of the blog, but to translate it and republish it. This is a powerful demonstration of the durability of Internet media-and interesting to read in its own right.

Blog is a combination of technical reviews and a normal human aspect of this work. Here are a few excerpts to give you a taste (format mine to save space):

Today, together with the battery charging robots, it was my turn to teach. I have them a little bit yesterday, though. Training takes place at low radiation outdoor area, but we wear full radiation protection clothes and accoutrements, detract from my thinking abilities. I usually not good thinking (LOL). The training is designed to replicate as closely as possible the actual task. At first I tried to open a heavy steel door (with a round knob). They said that I was the first person to successfully opening the door with a handle, actually.

Today we went and used two PackBots are to measure levels of radiation on the ground floor of the nuclear reactor in no. 3, the building where clean Warrior (disinfection) yesterday.
As a result of radiation levels decreased an average of about 10%.
If you're just looking at the results of the measurements they still look pretty high, but on the other hand, if you only look at the difference [in some areas], you get the sense that it was very effective.
There are places where the rate decreased to a maximum of 80 mph.

The first one who got up to go to the bathroom, Mr. S, said: "Hey, there's someone here. Who is this? "so I got to see and there was someone sleeping on tatami floor ... I looked at his face and don't recognize it. I woke up it asks, "who are you? You are in the right room? "he was kind of confused as well.
“? ? ?”
"What room it?" he said sleepily.
He slightly smelled alcohol, so he probably got drunk and slept in a wrong number.

You get the idea. There are photos of the operating environment, robots and so forth. All in all recording valuable recovery and cleanup efforts around the reactor. One commenter in IEEE, who works with the same robots already mentioned, he found some useful information from a shortened incomplete translation! Although I can understand that such a thing must also be distributed as part of the official operator environment (reports and such), this blog was clearly non-destructive way for unofficial information.

There were also selected pictures and videos:

Blog disappeared in July and still nobody commented. It is interesting to note that this does not mean whether it was closed voluntarily or under pressure from s.h. leaders. The fact that because it's worth something to someone, the deletion of this content was in their hands.

It is a form of Internet archaeology. In fact the site with the same name was formed to consolidate goldmine kitsch, Geocities. And although it's a bit of a lark, the principle applies equally to more serious content, as S.H. in the blog. Content controls disappear from the Internet is usually pretty about it. Truly sensitive information like Wikileaks or hackers Black Hat, it is virtually impossible to completely eliminate.

What is the endgame here? Polarization. If official government programs have to worry about their employees ' personal blogs, they just may prohibit them from having them at all. On the other hand to satisfy the thirst for information in real time and "transparency", will have a more formal channels for such data must be created. Will closely regulate these channels? Yes. They will identify and wonder how blogs like sh? # They will be better than what we were five years ago? Perhaps. There will always be a demand for deep secret anonymous blogs etc, but the methods to suppress and methods for creating, in a constant arms race. Sometimes you can get it from the tap, but sometimes you just have to get it, as it was bottled.

At the same time, if you're at all interested in cleanup efforts, or practical Robotics in General, check the record of the IEEE. If you speak Japanese, you can see some of the posts, mirrored here, and Google cache is still partially intact.


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Saturday, October 1, 2011

Android (finally) steps in the direction of WebKit and chrome

MG Siegler wrote to TechCrunch since 2009. It covers web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, in fact all. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, mg attended the University of Michigan. He had previously lived in Los Angeles, where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where ... ? Read More

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Why not chrome is part of Android? This is a question as old as time itself. Or at least a few years. But given that the same company, Google, makes both products, he never made much sense. Now they're finally taking steps to address this problem. A little. Can be.

As Google announced the team group WebKit-Dev today (to Google Peter Beverloo), now the Android team seeks to work more closely with the community of WebKit. Yes, it's a bit strange that so committed to "open" the product is not actually works with the open source community — but hey, better late than never.

Andrei Popescu Writes:

We wanted to give an update on the WebKit on Android. Some time ago, we started the higher Android port of WebKit. For a variety of reasons, this work took longer than expected and was never completed. We understand that the incomplete Android port that exists today in WebKit ToT caused quite a lot of confusion and inconvenience for the project as a whole, and we are very sorry for this.

The full story is a bit trickier than it seems on the surface. While Android has its own separate browser which are not branded as "Chrome", both share some code. But they are not the same thing, and two separate commands work on each. For whatever reason, Google decided not to brand the Android browser like chrome, and do it now may cause some confusion since no chrome OS is another operating system, built by Google, Android.

So here is what happens now: Google Android team going to start giving another, slightly modified build Android browser that is fully open source. Think of it as Google chrome chrome. Android code will be deleted, and probably everyone will be able to use this code to build a new mobile Web browser based on WebKit.

That's all in the tech talk:

We plan to start with a build script webkit.org which will be compiled of chrome in the DRT for Android using the Android NDK, SDK and tools. We look forward to a quite small set of changes to the port of chrome in order to achieve this goal. We are fully committed to support this new flavor of chromium WebKit port and build Bot up and running as soon as possible will do this simple task. At the same time, we will delete the existing incomplete Android port. This includes Android code into WebCore/platform/android, as any code protected macro PLATFORM (ANDROID).

That makes it particularly difficult to understand that it sure sounds like Google is planning to call this version of the Android open source browser chrome and this will just new taste. Perhaps it's not so bad, because there is already a Windows, OS X and Linux flavors (and Android, one will be very close to Linux, the OS core technology, they share), but the finished product to all of these operating systems is called chrome, Android, he still would not be (presumably, anyway).

Follow all this?

Yes, it's still confusing, but in any case, it is a welcome step in the right direction.


Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and money in the world of information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers many ...

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Android is a software platform for mobile devices running the Linux operating system and developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance. This allows developers to write managed ...

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Co-founder of SimpleGeo Matt Galligan as steps down; Will focus on assisting the TechStars and non-profit

MG Siegler wrote to TechCrunch since 2009. It covers web, mobile, social, big companies, small companies, in fact all. And Apple. A lot. Prior to TechCrunch he covered various technology beats for VentureBeat. Originally from Ohio, mg attended the University of Michigan. He had previously lived in Los Angeles, where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where ... ? Read More

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In November last year, the location of the launch, SimpleGeo, former CEO of Digg's Jay Adelson has replaced co-founder Matt Galligan, Director-General. While Zach Galligan slid as Chief Strategy and became a public face of the company. Now he is leaving the company altogether.

You can read news on the SimpleGeo blog here, as well as Zach Galligan own thoughts here. But in fact it is something that has been in the works since Adelson took over these many months ago, Zach Galligan said. The company is now moving into the next phase of Zach Galligan believes that the time has come to step aside. He will continue to act as an adviser, but Sheldon Adelson and SimpleGeo co-founder Joe Stump will continue to steer the ship.

While Zach Galligan figures that he wants to do next, he's going to take an extended period of time. He dove right into SimpleGeo (then known as Crash Corp.) following the resignation of AOL in May 2009. He sold his first startup, Socialthing, AOL in August 2008.

But Zach Galligan did not fully away from the scene at the time of its launch. He'll be helping out of TechStars incubator, giving much needed voice and presence on the West Coast. Zach Galligan has long had ties with TechStars community as Socialthing first class in 2007.

In addition, he will soon be starting a non-profit foundation with Shervin Pishevar, longtime businessman and currently the Managing Director of Menlo Ventures. "1% of nothing", the Fund will request the founders to commit one percent stake in their company should be given to charity in the event of a liquidity event. Zach Galligan did it himself, giving a percentage of the sale of Socialthing Foundation in Boulder, Colorado.

SimpleGeo has raised about $ 10 million in funding so far. As they enter the next stage whispers have them there more.


SimpleGeo provides ready-to-use location infrastructure, which allows you to easily location-aware ad functionality for applications. The company was founded in 2009, Galligan as Matt and Joe Stump.

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TechStars is a seed fund. He offers $ 6000, the founder of the company that make your list for up to 3 founders. In turn, TechStars is 6% of the shares.

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