Design Graphics Lab News

Talks: Two games related speakers next week: Gillian Smith & Brian Magerko

2012-02-23T14:00:00.001-05:00

Folks,

Two games related talks in our department next week, both in EB2 3211:

Talk Title: Procedural Content Generation for Game Design
Speaker: Gillian Smith, Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz
Talk Date: Tuesday February 28, 2012, 12:30PM

Abstract: Computer game design has always been driven by technology, from advances in graphics to new user interfaces such as the Wii and Kinect. The future of game design lies in the development of technologies that enable new player experiences and game genres. This talk describes two ways in which procedural content generation stands to influence the future of games: as a tool that supports players designing their own content for games, and as a means for allowing meaningful player choices that change the game environment.

Talk Title: Creativity, Cognition, and Computation in Digital Media
Speaker: Brian Magerko, Georgia Institute of Technology
Talk Date: Wednesday February 29, 2012, 12PM

Abstract: This presentation will focus on the integration of studying human creativity and cognition with the purpose of creating digital media experiences that have a key computational component. It will present two current works on this theme of creativity, cognition, and computation: the Digital Improv Project, an NSF-funded multi-year effort focused on the cognitive study of professional improvisational actors to inform interactive narrative technology practices; and EarSketch, a software and curriculum approach that leverages student creativity to learn computing principles through the remixing of music with code. These two projects will be used as exemplars of Dr. Magerko's research in leveraging human creativity for the design of digital media technologies and experiences. This talk will conclude with a description of the long-term trajectory for this research in entertainment and educational digital media applications with examples of upcoming projects.

Find: Searching for creative young minds ((tags: finds, competitions, google)

2012-02-20T00:45:00.001-05:00

Sounds amazing....

Searching for creative young minds

Google Student Blog

Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog

Are you between 18 and 24 years old and have done something to make an impact in the world? Do you fancy the opportunity to come to the UK and meet some of the great minds of our time?

If so, apply by March 19 to Google's youth challenge, Zeitgeist Young Minds, by uploading a short video telling your story, what matters to you and how you’re making a positive impact on your world. We want to find the most exceptional and inspiring young people who are helping others through science, the arts, education, leadership or innovation.

Winners will meet the leaders attending 2012 Zeitgeist. Previous Zeitgeist speakers have included Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Black Eyed Peas’ will.I.am, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts, and Google CEO Larry Page.

The inaugural ‘Young Minds’ competition rewarded a series of pathbreakers, ranging from a student who launched free hip-hop dance classes for high-risk youth to a South African AIDS activist to a student who founded an organization offering IT education. A full list of last year's winning projects are found here.

Events agency Livity is managing the contest and will pick the winners. Zeitgeist Young Minds is open to all young people ages 18-24 who are residents of South Africa, Algeria, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Egypt, Spain, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, Holland, Poland, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, Russia , Sweden, Tunisia, and Yemen.

Posted by Elizabeth Dupuy, Event Manager, External Relations

Sent with Reeder

Opp: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!

2012-02-13T11:00:00.001-05:00

Hey folks,

Last day to apply to attend siggraph as a volunteer. SIGGRAPH is the premier graphics event. Highly recommended.

Best,

Ben

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.

919-513-0325 | designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <Mikki_Rose@siggraph.org>
Date: Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Subject: SV Application Deadline February 13!!!
To: bwatson@ncsu.edu

Hello alumni! The SIGGRAPH 2012 Student Volunteer Program application deadline is rapidly approaching and we're asking for your help! All SV applications must be completed by Monday, 13 February 2012, 22:00 UTC/GMT (note, that is 2:00pm PST). If you or any students you know are applying would you please help spread the word about this deadline? If applications are started but still incomplete by that time they will not be considered for the program. Thank you so much for your help, we appreciate it!

Think they need some inspiration? Please feel free to share this video created by the SV Subcommittee, it's sure to get students red-diculously pumped!

Thank you again for your help, and good luck to your and your student friends!

~Mikki

Find: How close are we to truly photorealistic, real-time games?

2012-02-10T17:47:00.001-05:00

Still a long way to go, tim's right. But closer. We we'd a paper on similar themes:

http://koolhaas.csc.ncsu.edu/pages/docs/computer.pdf.

The paper argues that pixels may not be the right primitive at this scale of realism.

Also, I think Tim's right to mention modeling as a huge challenge in this context.

How close are we to truly photorealistic, real-time games?

Ars Technica

Every graphical and technical advance the game industry has seen from Pong to Crysis has been a small step toward the end goal of a real-time, photorealistic 3D world that is truly indistinguishable from a real-world scene. Speaking at the DICE Summit Thursday, Epic Games founder and programmer Tim Sweeney examined the speed and direction of computing improvements and determined that we "might expect, over the course of our lifetime, we'd get to amounts of computing power that come very close to simulating reality."

Spotted: TreeMatrix: A Hybrid Visualization of Compound Graphs

2012-02-08T18:19:00.001-05:00

Looks related to our lab's work and Fekete and inria's.

TreeMatrix: A Hybrid Visualization of Compound Graphs

CG Forum

Abstract

We present a hybrid visualization technique for compound graphs (i.e. networks with a hierarchical clustering defined on the nodes) that combines the use of adjacency matrices, node-link and arc diagrams to show the graph, and also combines the use of nested inclusion and icicle diagrams to show the hierarchical clustering. The graph visualized with our technique may have edges that are weighted and/or directed. We first explore the design space of visualizations of compound graphs and present a taxonomy of hybrid visualization techniques. We then present our prototype, which allows clusters (i.e. subtrees) of nodes to be grouped into matrices or split apart using a radial menu. We also demonstrate how our prototype can be used in the software engineering domain, and compare it to the commercial matrix-based visualization tool Lattix using a qualitative user study.

Spotted: To make a social robot, key is satisfying the human mind

2012-02-08T07:15:00.001-05:00

Robot researchers find a version of the uncanny valley for robots, just like the one for virtual characters. Someone needs to measure this valley.

To make a social robot, key is satisfying the human mind

ScienceDaily: Mobile Computing News

Understanding the human mind is the key to social robotics, and researchers describe what we can expect from this field in the future.

Go Viral to Improve Health - Institute of Medicine

2012-01-29T01:11:00.001-05:00

via iom.edu

A contest to develop a health related mobile app, registration deadline February 10, app submission deadline March 28.

You need to involve a student in health, and use a certain data source.

Winner gets several thousand dollars.

Find: Lytro's light field camera technology could supercharge future iPhones

2012-01-25T01:20:00.001-05:00

Lytro is a new camera that can refocus AFTER images are made. By itself it's already awesome, with iPhone it could be amazing.

Lytro's light field camera technology could supercharge future iPhones

Ars Technica

According to Walter Issacson's authorized biography about former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, one of the things Jobs wanted to "revolutionize" was photography. Jobs believed the iPhone was a vehicle for doing so, but current imaging technologies limit the photographic abilities of smartphones. As detailed in a new book by Fortune's Adam Lashinsky, Inside Apple, Jobs may have found the solution he was looking for in a radical imaging technology from Lytro. To that end, Jobs apparently met with Lytro CEO Ren Ng in June 2011 to discuss how Apple might integrate Lytro's light field technology into its products.

One aspect of the iPhone that has received constant improvements over the years is its included camera. The original iPhone had a fixed focus lens and a 2MP sensor, while the iPhone 3G was upgraded with autofocus capabilities and 3MP. The iPhone 4 moved up to 5MP and added an LED flash and 720p video. The iPhone 4S went even further, moving up to 8MP, improving low-light capture, and moving to full 1080p HD.

Spotted: Efficient Image-Based Proximity Queries with Object-Space Precision

2012-01-25T00:40:00.001-05:00

A new paper uses gpus to calculate collisions.

Efficient Image-Based Proximity Queries with Object-Space Precision

CG Forum

Abstract

We present an efficient algorithm for object-space proximity queries between multiple deformable triangular meshes. Our approach uses the rasterization capabilities of the GPU to produce an image-space representation of the vertices. Using this image-space representation, inter-object vertex-triangle distances and closest points lying under a user-defined threshold are computed in parallel by conservative rasterization of bounding primitives and sorted using atomic operations. We additionally introduce a similar technique to detect penetrating vertices. We show how mechanisms of modern GPUs such as mipmapping, Early-Z and Early-Stencil culling can optimize the performance of our method. Our algorithm is able to compute dense proximity information for complex scenes made of more than a hundred thousand triangles in real time, outperforming a CPU implementation based on bounding volume hierarchies by more than an order of magnitude.

Find: Stanford professor gives up tenure to start Udacity free online university

2012-01-23T19:50:00.001-05:00

Hmm. Can students really get an interactive closed loop experience?

Stanford professor gives up tenure to start Udacity free online university

The Verge - All Posts

Inspired by the number of people that the Khan Academy's free video lectures reached, Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun put his own artificial intelligence class online and enrolled 160,000 students. After scrambling to accommodate so many pupils, he came away from the experience with a new vision of education so different that he says he "can't teach at Stanford again." Instead, he's starting an online university called Udacity. Thrun hopes to teach about 200,000 students per class — including grading exams and quizzes — in contrast to the mere hundreds taught at a brick-and-mortar university. The first two classes, starting February 20th, will teach students around the world to build a search engine or program a robotic car, and...

Competition: Data Journalism Awards now accepting submissions

2012-01-23T01:20:00.001-05:00

A competition in news oriented visualization and apps.

Data Journalism Awards now accepting submissions

Google

Last November, we announced our support for a new Data Journalism competition, organized by the Global Editors Network. The competition is now open to submissions and today we hosted an event at our offices in London to share details on how to compete and win a total of six prizes worth EUR 45,000. The European Journalism Centre is running the contest and Google is sponsoring.

Journalism is going through an exciting—if sometimes wrenching—transition from off to online. Google is keen to help. We see exciting possibilities of leveraging data to produce award-winning journalism. “Data journalism is a new, exciting part of the media industry, with at present only a small number of practitioners,” said Peter Barron, Google’s Director of External Relations. “We hope to see the number grow.”

In data journalism, reporters leverage numerical data and databases to gather, organize and produce news. Bertrand Pecquerie, the Global Editor Network’s CEO, believes the use of data will, in particular, revolutionize investigative reporting. “We are convinced that there is a bright future for journalism,” he said at the London event. “This is not just about developing new hardware like tablets. It is above all about producing exciting new content.”

The European Journalism Centre, a non-profit based in Maastricht, has been running data training workshops for several years. It is producing the Data Journalism Awards website and administering the prize. “This new initiative should help convince editors around the world that data journalism is not a crazy idea, but a viable part of the industry,” says Wilfried Ruetten, Director of the center.

Projects should be submitted to http://www.datajournalismawards.org. The deadline is April 10, 2012. Entries should have been published or aired between April 11, 2011 and April 10, 2012. Media companies, non-profit organisations, freelancers and individuals are eligible.

Submissions are welcomed in three categories: data-driven investigative journalism, data-driven applications and data visualisation and storytelling. National and international projects will be judged separately from local and regional ones. “We wanted to encourage not only the New York Times’s of the world to participate, but media outlets of all sizes,” says Pecquerie. “Journalism students are also invited to enter, provided their work has been published.”

An all-star jury has been assembled of journalists from prestigious international media companies including the New York Times, the Guardian and Les Echos. Paul Steiger, the former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning ProPublica, will serve as president.

Winners will be announced at the Global News Network’s World Summit in Paris on May 31, 2011.

Posted by William Echikson, External Relations

Spotted: Strategies for Crowdsourcing Social Data Analysis ((tags: spots,

2012-01-21T00:32:00.001-05:00

Looks like a paper on making mechanical Turk analysis of visuals work better.

Strategies for Crowdsourcing Social Data Analysis

Agrawala papers

Wesley Willett, Jeffrey Heer, Maneesh Agrawala

Abstract

Web-based social data analysis tools that rely on public discussion to produce hypotheses or explanations of the patterns and trends in data, rarely yield high-quality results in practice. Crowdsourcing offers an alternative approach in which an analyst pays workers to generate such explanations. Yet, asking workers with varying skills, backgrounds and motivations to simply "Explain why a chart is interesting" can result in irrelevant, unclear or speculative explanations of variable quality. To address these problems, we contribute seven strategies for improving the quality and diversity of worker-generated explanations. Our experiments show that using (S1) feature-oriented prompts, providing (S2) good examples, and including (S3) reference gathering, (S4) chart reading, and (S5) annotation subtasks increases the quality of responses by 28% for US workers and 196% for non-US workers. Feature-oriented prompts improve explanation quality by 69% to 236% depending on the prompt. We also show that (S6) pre-annotating charts can focus workers' attention on relevant details, and demonstrate that (S7) generating explanations iteratively increases explanation diversity without increasing worker attrition. We used our techniques to generate 910 explanations for 16 datasets, and found that 63% were of high quality. These results demonstrate that paid crowd workers can reliably generate diverse, high-quality explanations that support the analysis of specific datasets.

In our analysis workflow an analyst first selects charts, then uses crowd workers to carry out analysis microtasks and rating microtasks to generate and rate possible explanations of outliers, trends and other features in the data. Our approach makes it possible to quickly generate large numbers of good candidate explanations for outliers and trends in data.

Research Paper

PDF (2.0M)

Video

MOV (31.8M) | YouTube

Strategies for Crowdsourcing Social Data Analysis

Wesley Willett, Jeffrey Heer, Maneesh Agrawala

ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2012

PDF (2.0M) | MOV (31.8M) | YouTube

Spotted: Proton: Multitouch Gestures as Regular Expressions

2012-01-21T00:30:00.001-05:00

An interesting looking paper on a systematic tool for gesture recognition.

Proton: Multitouch Gestures as Regular Expressions

Agrawala papers

Kenrick Kin, Björn Hartmann, Tony DeRose, Maneesh Agrawala

Abstract

Current multitouch frameworks require application developers to write recognition code for custom gestures; this code is split across multiple event-handling callbacks. As the number of custom gestures grows it becomes increasingly difficult to 1) know if new gestures will conflict with existing gestures, and 2) know how to extend existing code to reliably recognize the complete gesture set. Proton is a novel framework that addresses both of these problems. Using Proton, the application developer declaratively specifies each gesture as a regular expression over a stream of touch events. Proton statically analyzes the set of gestures to report conflicts, and it automatically creates gesture recognizers for the entire set. To simplify the creation of complex multitouch gestures, Proton introduces gesture tablature, a graphical notation that concisely describes the sequencing of multiple interleaved touch actions over time. Proton contributes a graphical editor for authoring tablatures and automatically compiles tablatures into regular expressions. We present the architecture and implementation of Proton, along with three proof-of-concept applications. These applications demonstrate the expressiveness of the framework and show how Proton simplifies gesture definition and conflict resolution.

Proton represents a gesture as a regular expression describing a sequence of touch events. Using Proton’s gesture tablature, developers can design a multitouch gesture graphically by arranging touch sequences on horizontal tracks. Proton converts the tablature into a regular expression. When Proton matches the expression with the touch event stream, it invokes callbacks associated with the expression.

Research Paper

PDF (2.6M)

Video

MP4 (20.5M)

Proton: Multitouch Gestures as Regular Expressions

Kenrick Kin, Björn Hartmann, Tony DeRose, Maneesh Agrawala

ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2012.

PDF (2.6M) | MP4 (20.5M)

Find: The rise and fall of personal computing

2012-01-20T20:23:00.001-05:00

Good sense of perspective. The ground is shifting.

The rise and fall of personal computing

asymco

Thanks to Jeremy Reimer I was able to create the following view into the history of computer platforms.

I added data from the smartphone industry, Apple and updated the PC industry figures with those from Gartner. Note the log scale.

The same information is available as an animation in the following video (Music by Nora Tagle):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h-C6u4yLj4

This data combines several “categories” of products and is not complete in that not all mobile phone platforms are represented. However, the zooming out offers several possible observations into the state of the “personal computing” world as of today.

We cannot consider the iPad as a “niche”. The absolute volume of units sold after less than two years is enough to place it within an order of magnitude of all PCs sold. We can also observe that it has a higher trajectory than the iPhone which became a disruptive force in itself. Compare these challengers to NeXT in 1991.
The “entrants” into personal computing, the iPad, iPhone and Android, have a combined volume that is higher than the PCs sold in the same period (358 million estimated iOS+Android vs. 336 million PCs excluding Macs in 2011.) The growth rate and the scale itself combine to make the entrants impossible to ignore.
There is a distinct grouping of platform options into three phases or eras. The first lasting from 1975 to 1991 was an era of rapid growth but also of multiple standards and experiments. It was typical of an industry in emergence. The personalization of computing brought about a new set of entrants. The second phase lasted between 1991 and 2007 and was characterized by a near monopoly of Microsoft, but, crucially one alternative platform did survive. The third phase can be seen as starting five years ago with the emergence of the iPhone and its derivatives. It has similarities to the first phase.

We can also look at the data through a slightly different view: market share. Share is a bit more subjective because we need to combine products in ways that are considered comparable (or competing).

First, this is a “traditionalist” view of the PC market as defined by Gartner and IDC, and excluding tablets and smartphones.

This view would imply that the PC market is not changing in any substantial way. Although the Mac platform is gaining share, there is no significant erosion in the power of the incumbent.

Second, is a view where the iPad is added to the traditionalist view.

This view is more alarming. Given the first chart, in order for the iPad to be significant, it would need to be “visible” for a market that already ships over 350 million units. And there it is. If counted, the iPad begins to show the first disruption in the status quo since 1991.

The third view is with the addition of iPhone and Android.

This last view corresponds to the data in the first graph (line chart). If iOS and Android are added as potential substitutions for personal computing, the share of PCs suddenly collapses to less than 50%. It also suggests much more collapse to come.

I will concede that this last view is extremist. It does not reflect a competition that exists in real life. However, I put this data together to show a historic pattern. Sometimes extremism is a better point of view than conservatism. Ignoring this view is very harmful as these not-good-enough computers will surely get better. A competitor that has no strategy to deal with this shift is likely to suffer the fate of those companies in the left side of the chart. Treating the first share chart as reality is surely much more dangerous than contemplating the third.

I’ve used anecdotes in the past to tell the story of the disruptive shift in the fortunes of computing incumbents and entrants. I’ve also shown how the entry of smart devices has disrupted the telecom world and caused a transfer of wealth away from the old guard.

The data shown here frames these anecdotes. The data is not the whole story but it solidifies what should be an intuition.

I’ve also prepared a video showing the platforms

Find: Apple Releases iBooks 2, iTunes U, and iBooks Author for Interactive Textbooks

2012-01-19T12:48:00.001-05:00

Here comes change.

Apple Releases iBooks 2, iTunes U, and iBooks Author for Interactive Textbooks [IBooks]

Lifehacker

In an education focused event in New York today, Apple showed of its new version of iBooks and its new creation tool, iBooks Author.

iBooks 2 has a strong focus on textbook design, layout, and easy glossary searching. The books will focus on visuals in landscape mode and straight text in portrait mode. Like any good textbook, the Apple versions will have Q&A sections, critical thinking questions, and are packed full of images. Also included is a streamlined highlighting system that automatically converts your highlights into study cards. High school textbooks are priced at $14.99 or less. iBooks 2 is available for free as an update to iBooks in the iTunes App Store right now.

To accompany the new bookstore, Apple has a new textbook creation app called iBooks Author. The app tries to make book creation as simple as possible with drag and drop functionality, templates, widgets, and organization tools. It's available as a free download in the Mac App Store right now. In order to preview the books you create you need to update to a new version of iTunes, which is also available now.

Finally, iTunes U is getting an overhaul and an app today. It will allow students to access lectures, notes, and streams directly from an iPad in the same way they would an online class. Once exclusive to universities, it's now available to K-12 schools as well. If universities support it, the app will fully integrate with textbooks in iBooks. iTunes U is available as a free download in the iTunes App Store right now.

Design Your Schedule So Your Creative Duties Fall When You're Tired [Creativity]

2012-01-19T12:33:00.001-05:00

Fatigue is good for creativity. This kind at least. The key I suppose is remembering to write it down before you fall asleep....

Design Your Schedule So Your Creative Duties Fall When You're Tired [Creativity]

Lifehacker

Ever wonder why that brilliant idea always comes right before you fall asleep or when you're standing half awake in the shower? According to a recent study in the journal Thinking & Reasoning it's because you're more creative when you're feeling groggy.

In the study, researchers had students complete problem-solving tasks at various points in the day. The student's biggest insights came during their least optimal time of functioning. As a recommendation, the researchers suggest students design their schedules so their creative classes are during these non-optimal points in the day. For many, this is first thing in the morning or during that post-lunch brain slump. For non-students, the same advice makes sense and you can plan your brainstorming time when you're the most tired.

If those creative bursts come at strange times when you don't have a pen and paper handy, consider solutions like, a waterproof notepad for the shower, an IKEA table that's actually a giant notepad, or a memory trick to remember your creative thoughts before falling asleep. Photo by Nate Steiner.

You're most creative when you're at your groggiest | BPS Research Digest

‘Open Science’ Challenges Journal Tradition With Web Collaboration

2012-01-17T23:52:00.001-05:00

via nytimes.com

The future of science, in the long run, will be something like this.

Find: The Best of CES 2012

2012-01-17T22:27:00.001-05:00

Quadhd & very high res tabs (~2500).

The Best of CES 2012

AnandTech

CES is all wrapped up and everyone is back home, and one of the questions I’ve been asked repeatedly by friends and family is, “What was the coolest thing you saw at CES this year?” Now, keep in mind that I am only one person and I didn’t even see a fraction of the show floor, as there were plenty of meetings set up around Vegas, so this is just my perspective on the coolest technology trends at the show. You’ll also notice that there’s a common thread in what really impressed me, but this is a highly subjective topic so take it for what it’s worth: one man’s opinion. What three things impressed me most at CES this year? Read on to find out.

Find: Lytro's quirky camera is equal bits awkward, fun

2012-01-15T23:02:00.001-05:00

Details from the stanford startup in light field photography.

Lytro's quirky camera is equal bits awkward, fun

Ars Technica

Imaging start-up Lytro, which hopes to revolutionize photography with its innovative light field capture technique, was giving demonstrations of its upcoming digital pocket camera at CES. We got a few short minutes to play with a working prototype, which we were told isn't 100 percent final. While the unusual shape and button arrangement do take a little getting used to, we had fun trying our hand at capturing images and changing the focus after the fact.

The Lytro is a smallish but chunky aluminum tube which houses an 8x optical zoom lens. The camera is well weighted, but it's a bit larger than we expected. The rear section is covered in a grippy rubber material, with a shutter button on top and a power button on the bottom. a small flap on the bottom also reveals a micro-USB port, and along the top is a small textured strip that actually works as a capacitive touch zoom slider.

Find: The Restart Page is a walk down OS memory lane

2012-01-11T08:55:00.001-05:00

Geekstalgia.

The Restart Page is a walk down OS memory lane

There are lots of computer experiences that come and go. The apps, the bugs, the features... and they all fade away with time. But there's one thing that's burned indelibly in our memories: the restart screen. Just like holding a wife's hand while she gives birth, this excruciating, drawn-out experience actually brought us closer to our machines — and we didn't know it until The Restart Page let us play it all back, one OS at a time.

Find: JVC introduces GY-HMQ10 handheld 4K camcorder, available in March for $4,995

2012-01-11T02:38:00.001-05:00

Quadhd content gets cheaper

JVC introduces GY-HMQ10 handheld 4K camcorder, available in March for $4,995

JVC just announced a handheld 4K camcorder that it claims is the first of its kind in the world. The GY-HMQ10, as it is known, features a 1/2-inch CMOS sensor with a staggering 8.3 million pixels. Video is recorded at a native resolution of 3840 x 2160 with frame rate options including 24p, 50p, and 60p. Even more impressive, the company's high-speed Falconbrid LSI chip allows 4K images to be mirrored on a projector or external monitor with nary a hint of lag. From there, JVC says that up to two hours of compressed 4K video may be stored on a suitable high-capacity SDHC card. The GY-HMQ10 officially launches today, with availability expected in March at an MSRP of $4,995.

Opp: Student stipend to attend I3D 2012

2011-12-06T17:25:00.001-05:00

An opp to attend the ACM I3D event on the event's dime.

I3D is the main event that focuses on graphics applicable to games. It's a nice small event that affords many chances to meet with attendees, unlike siggraph, which is far too large and crazy to make cold meetings easy.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kartic <kartic@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 4:58 PM
Subject: Student stipend to attend I3D 2012
To: i3d-announce <i3d-announce@googlegroups.com>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACM Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics and Games (I3D) 2012
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are offering a student stipend to sponsor three students attending
I3D 2012. The program is open to students worldwide (at the
undergraduate or graduate level, or equivalent) who have not
previously published at I3D. Three stipends of 200 US dollars each
will be awarded to reimburse travel, hotel and meals. Since the
program objective is to encourage participation of students new to I3D
and perhaps new to 3D graphics, stipends will not be given to students
who are authors or co-authors of accepted papers or those who have
published at I3D earlier. Poster presenters may apply for a stipend.

To apply for the stipend, please send an application packet to
stipends@i3dsymposium.org by no later than Sunday December 18th,
11:59PM PST, 2011. The applications will be reviewed by committee and
the recipients of the stipends will be notified via email. Your
application packet should be a single PDF file (e.g., print using
PDFCreator) containing the following parts:

- Contact information: your name, mailing address, and an email
address.
- Faculty contact: please include the name and email address of your
advisor or a professor who supports your application to the Student
Stipend Program.
- Resume: please include an up-to-date resume or CV.

If you have further questions regarding the I3D Student Stipend
Program, please send an email to stipends@i3dsymposium.org before the
deadline. Also, see the I3D website for more details about the
conference. I look forward to your application and to seeing you at
I3D 2012!

Thank you,
Kartic Subr

Find: Google's Graphing Calculator -- sweet, reverse polish now please

2011-12-05T22:10:00.001-05:00

And a gadoodle in honor of the hp calc on top.

Google's Graphing Calculator

Now you no longer need to use Wolfram Alpha to plot Math graphs. Google shows an interactive graph when you search for a Math function or a list of functions separated by commas. "You can zoom in and out and pan across the plane to explore the function in more detail. This feature covers an extensive range of single variable functions including trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic and their compositions, and is available in modern browsers," explains Google.
For example, you can search for [sin(x)/x, 1/x^2] to see this beautiful SVG graph.

You can also search for [sin(x) from -pi to pi] or add extraneous words like "plot", "graph" to the query (example: [graph ln(x)]).

{ Thanks, Arpit. }

The Legacy of Steve Jobs -- great retrospective in acm mag

2011-12-04T22:16:00.001-05:00

Number of good points here, including that jobs figured out a way to turn high design into a platform.

The Legacy of Steve Jobs

Reflecting on the career and contributions of the Apple cofounder.

Spotted: An Optimal Control Approach for Texture Metamorphosis

2011-12-04T12:03:00.001-05:00

Texture perception is still poorly understood. We've given thought to this problem.

An Optimal Control Approach for Texture Metamorphosis

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a new texture metamorphosis approach for interpolating texture samples from a source texture into a target texture. We use a new energy optimization scheme derived from optimal control principles which exploits the structure of the metamorphosis optimality conditions. Our approach considers the change in pixel position and pixel appearance in a single framework. In contrast to previous techniques that compute a global warping based on feature masks of textures, our approach allows to transform one texture into another by considering both intensity values and structural features of textures simultaneously. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach for different textures, such as stochastic, semi-structural and regular textures, with different levels of complexities. Our method produces visually appealing transformation sequences with no user interaction.

Spotted: Building look & feel concept models from color combinations

2011-12-04T11:59:00.001-05:00

Interesting topic, wonder if they got any real traction?

Building look & feel concept models from color combinations

Abstract

In this paper, we tackle the problem of associating combinations of colors to abstract concepts (e.g. capricious, classic, cool, delicate, etc.). Since such concepts are difficult to represent using single colors, we consider combinations of colors or color palettes. We leverage two novel databases for color palettes, and learn categorization models using both low and high level descriptors.
It is shown that the Bag of Colors and Fisher Vectors are the most rewarding descriptors for palettes categorization and retrieval.

A simple but novel and efficient method for cleaning weakly annotated data, whilst preserving the visual coherence of categories
is also given.

Finally, we demonstrate that abstract category models learned on color palettes can be used in different applications such
as image personalization, concept-based palette, and image retrieval and color transfer.

Content Type Journal Article
Category Original Article
Pages 1039-1053
DOI 10.1007/s00371-011-0657-9
Authors
Gabriela Csurka, XRCE-Xerox Research Centre Europe, 6, Chemin de Maupertuis, Meylan, France
Sandra Skaff, XRCE-Xerox Research Centre Europe, 6, Chemin de Maupertuis, Meylan, France
Luca Marchesotti, XRCE-Xerox Research Centre Europe, 6, Chemin de Maupertuis, Meylan, France
Craig Saunders, XRCE-Xerox Research Centre Europe, 6, Chemin de Maupertuis, Meylan, France

Journal The Visual Computer
Online ISSN 1432-2315
Print ISSN 0178-2789

Journal Volume Volume 27

Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 12

Spotted: Empirical Studies in Information Visualization: Seven Scenarios

2011-12-04T05:37:00.001-05:00

Sheelagh and catherine are leaders in viz evaluation. Should be interesting.

PrePrint: Empirical Studies in Information Visualization: Seven Scenarios

We take a new, scenario based look at evaluation in information visualization. Our seven scenarios, evaluating visual data analysis and reasoning, evaluating user performance, evaluating user experience, evaluating environments and work practices, evaluating communication through visualization, evaluating visualization algorithms, and evaluating collaborative data analysis were derived through an extensive literature review of over 800 visualization publications. These scenarios distinguish different study goals and types of research questions and are illustrated through example studies. Through this broad survey and the distillation of these scenarios we make two contributions. One, we encapsulate the current practices in the information visualization research community and, two, we provide a different approach to reaching decisions about what might be the most effective evaluation of a given information visualization. Scenarios can be used to choose appropriate research questions and goals and the provided examples can be consulted for guidance on how to design one's own study.

Spotted: Graph Drawing Aesthetics—Created by Users, Not Algorithms

2011-12-04T05:25:00.001-05:00

Users don't like edge crossings, and do like node alignment.

Graph Drawing Aesthetics—Created by Users, Not Algorithms

Prior empirical work on layout aesthetics for graph drawing algorithms has concentrated on the interpretation of existing graph drawings. We report on experiments which focus on the creation and layout of graph drawings: participants were asked to draw graphs based on adjacency lists, and to lay them out "nicely.” Two interaction methods were used for creating the drawings: a sketch interface which allows for easy, natural hand movements, and a formal point-and-click interface similar to a typical graph editing system. We find, in common with many other studies, that removing edge crossings is the most significant aesthetic, but also discover that aligning nodes and edges to an underlying grid is important. We observe that the aesthetics favored by participants during creation of a graph drawing are often not evident in the final product and that the participants did not make a clear distinction between the processes of creation and layout. Our results suggest that graph drawing systems should integrate automatic layout with the user's manual editing process, and provide facilities to support grid-based graph creation.

Find: Interview with SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Speaker & Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton

2011-12-03T16:52:00.001-05:00

Glad bill also thinks displays are a big part of the future of graphics. He's always been a leader in bringing the human element to the field.

Interview with SIGGRAPH ASIA 2011 Speaker & Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton

Bill Buxton, a principal researcher for Microsoft Research, will be making a presentation during SIGGRAPH Asia. He recently got a chance to discuss his work.

Find: Chewing Gum Can Boost Mental Performance

2011-11-29T22:50:00.001-05:00

Hah! I knew there was a reason I felt good chewing gum.

Maybe blood flow to the head?

Chewing Gum Can Boost Mental Performance [Mind Hacks]

Wired points out a number of studies that show chewing gum can, in fact, boost your memory, attention, cognitive reasoning skills, and other mental abilities.

It's unclear why gum seems to have such a positive effect on our mental state, but a number of studies have shown it to be true:

Gum is an effective booster of mental performance, conferring all sorts of benefits without any side effects. The latest investigation of gum chewing comes from a team of psychologists at St. Lawrence University. The experiment went like this: 159 students were given a battery of demanding cognitive tasks, such as repeating random numbers backward and solving difficult logic puzzles. Half of the subjects chewed gum (sugar-free and sugar-added) while the other half were given nothing. Here's where things get peculiar: Those randomly assigned to the gum-chewing condition significantly outperformed those in the control condition on five out of six tests.

However, while these benefits have been studied time and again, this most recent study showed that the positive effects only last about 20 minutes. After more than 20 minutes of chewing, gum chewers are no better off than non-chewers when it comes to performance. Still, it's an interesting read—and a good excuse to chew a bit of gum (quietly, and preferably sugar-free) during your next college exam, paper, or other mentally intensive activity. Hit the link for the full article, and of course, don't forget it can help with heartburn too. Photo by Jamiesrabbits.

The Cognitive Benefits Of Chewing Gum | Wired

You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

Spotted: Sample distribution shadow maps

2011-11-29T22:31:00.001-05:00

New soft shadow technique

Sample distribution shadow maps

Andrew Lauritzen, Marco Salvi, Aaron Lefohn

This paper introduces Sample Distribution Shadow Maps (SDSMs), a new algorithm for hard and soft-edged shadows that greatly reduces undersampling, oversampling, and geometric aliasing errors compared to other shadow map techniques. SDSMs fall into the space between scene-dependent, variable-performance shadow algorithms and scene-independent, fixed-performance shadow algorithms. They provide a fully automated solution to shadow map aliasing by optimizing the placement and size of a fixed number of Z-partitions using the distribution of the light space samples required by the current frame. SDSMs build on the advantages of current state of the art techniques, including predictable performance and constant memory usage, while removing tedious and ultimately suboptimal parameter tuning.

Spotted: Urban ecosystem design

2011-11-29T22:29:00.001-05:00

Growing plants in cities

Urban ecosystem design

Bedřich Beneš, Michel Abdul Massih, Philip Jarvis, Daniel G. Aliaga, Carlos A. Vanegas

We address the open problem of spatial distribution of vegetation in urban environments by introducing a user-guided simulation and procedural system for integrating plants into the interactive design process of 3D urban models. Our approach uses as input 3D geometry of an urban layout from which it infers initial conditions and parameters of procedural rules. A level of manageability is calculated for each area of the urban space. The manageability level defines the amount of influence between the wild ecosystem simulation, where the plants compete for resources and seed freely, and the managed ecosystem, where nearly no seeding is allowed and the plants grow only under well-defined conditions.

Spotted: Voxel-based global illumination

2011-11-29T22:26:00.001-05:00

Voxels seem to be an emerging trend in global illumination.

Voxel-based global illumination

Sinje Thiedemann, Niklas Henrich, Thorsten Grosch, Stefan Müller

Computing a global illumination solution in real-time is still an open problem. We introduce Voxel-based Global Illumination (VGI), a scalable technique that ranges from real-time near-field illumination to interactive global illumination solutions. To obtain a voxelized scene representation, we introduce a new atlas-based boundary voxelization algorithm and an extension to a fast ray-voxel intersection test. Similar to screen-space illumination methods, VGI is independent of the scene complexity. Using voxels for indirect visibility enables real-time near-field illumination without the screen-space artifacts of alternative methods. Furthermore, VGI can be extended to interactive, multi-bounce global illumination solutions like path tracing and instant radiosity.

Spotted: Colored stochastic shadow maps

2011-11-29T22:20:00.001-05:00

Handling colored translucency in real time.

Colored stochastic shadow maps

Morgan McGuire, Eric Enderton

This paper extends the stochastic transparency algorithm that models partial coverage to also model wavelength-varying transmission. It then applies this to the problem of casting shadows between any combination of opaque, colored transmissive, and partially covered (i.e., α-matted) surfaces in a manner compatible with existing hardware shadow mapping techniques. Colored Stochastic Shadow Maps have a similar resolution and performance profile to traditional shadow maps, however they require a wider filter in colored areas to reduce hue variation.

Spotted: Shadow caster culling for efficient shadow mapping

2011-11-29T22:18:00.001-05:00

Culling occluders for shadow maps.

Shadow caster culling for efficient shadow mapping

Jiří Bittner, Oliver Mattausch, Ari Silvennoinen, Michael Wimmer

We propose a novel method for efficient construction of shadow maps by culling shadow casters which do not contribute to visible shadows. The method uses a mask of potential shadow receivers to cull shadow casters using a hierarchical occlusion culling algorithm. We propose several variants of the receiver mask implementations with different culling efficiency and computational costs. For scenes with statically focused shadow maps we designed an efficient strategy to incrementally update the shadow map, which comes close to the rendering performance for unshadowed scenes.

Spotted: A local image reconstruction algorithm for stochastic rendering

2011-11-29T22:14:00.001-05:00

On blurring reconstruction for stochastic rendering. I've worked with David, Peter and Eric.

A local image reconstruction algorithm for stochastic rendering

Peter Shirley, Timo Aila, Jonathan Cohen, Eric Enderton, Samuli Laine, David Luebke, Morgan McGuire

Stochastic renderers produce unbiased but noisy images of scenes that include the advanced camera effects of motion and defocus blur and possibly other effects such as transparency. We present a simple algorithm that selectively adds bias in the form of image space blur to pixels that are unlikely to have high frequency content in the final image. For each pixel, we sweep once through a fixed neighborhood of samples in front to back order, using a simple accumulation scheme.

Spotted: Active thread compaction for GPU path tracing

2011-11-29T22:05:00.001-05:00

Preserving parallelism on the gpu

Active thread compaction for GPU path tracing

Ingo Wald

Modern GPUs like NVidia's Fermi internally operate in a SIMD manner by ganging multiple (32) scalar threads together into SIMD warps; if a warp's threads diverge, the warp serially executes both branches, temporarily disabling threads that are not on that path. In this paper, we explore and thoroughly analyze the concept of active thread compaction---i.e., the process of taking multiple partially-filled warps and compacting them to fewer but fully utilized warps---in the context of a CUDA path tracer. Our results show that this technique can indeed lead to significant improvements in SIMD utilization, and corresponding savings in the amount of work performed; however, they also show that certain inadequacies of today's hardware wipe out most of the achieved gains, leaving bottom-up speed-ups of a mere 12--16%.

Spotted: Improving SIMD efficiency for parallel Monte Carlo light transport on the GPU

2011-11-29T22:04:00.001-05:00

Handling randomness on the gpu

Improving SIMD efficiency for parallel Monte Carlo light transport on the GPU

Dietger van Antwerpen

Monte Carlo Light Transport algorithms such as Path Tracing (PT), Bi-Directional Path Tracing (BDPT) and Metropolis Light Transport (MLT) make use of random walks to sample light transport paths. When parallelizing these algorithms on the GPU the stochastic termination of random walks results in an uneven workload between samples, which reduces SIMD efficiency. In this paper we propose to combine stream compaction and sample regeneration to keep SIMD efficiency high during random walk construction, in spite of stochastic termination. Furthermore, for BDPT and MLT, we propose to evaluate all bidirectional connections of a sample in parallel in order to balance the workload between GPU threads and improve SIMD efficiency during sample evaluation.

Spotted: Voxelized shadow volumes

2011-11-29T22:02:00.001-05:00

New shadow algorithm.

Voxelized shadow volumes

Chris Wyman

Efficient shadowing algorithms have been sought for decades, but most shadow research focuses on quickly identifying shadows on surfaces. This paper introduces a novel algorithm to efficiently sample light visibility at points inside a volume. These voxelized shadow volumes (VSVs) extend shadow maps to allow efficient, simultaneous queries of visibility along view rays, or can alternately be seen as a discretized shadow volume. We voxelize the scene into a binary, epipolar-space grid where we apply a fast parallel scan to identify shadowed voxels. Using a view-dependent grid, our GPU implementation looks up 128 visibility samples along any eye ray with a single texture fetch.

Spotted: Real-time diffuse global illumination using radiance hints

2011-11-29T21:57:00.001-05:00

Real-time diffuse global illumination using radiance hints

Georgios Papaioannou

GPU-based interactive global illumination techniques are receiving an increasing interest from both the research and the industrial community as real-time graphics applications strive for visually rich and realistic dynamic three-dimensional environments. This paper presents a fast new diffuse global illumination method that generates a sparse set of low-cost radiance field evaluation points (radiance hints) and computes an arbitrary number of diffuse inter-reflections within a given volume.

Find: Inside the Sketchbook of Susan Kare, Apple's pioneering interface designer

2011-11-25T03:05:00.001-05:00

Great history of Susan Kare, maker of apple's icons. The delight at the mac's core.

Thanks Steve Silberman and plos. Via the verge.

Inside the Sketchbook of Susan Kare, Apple's pioneering interface designer

While Steve Jobs is given a lot of credit for bringing graphical user interfaces to the world of personal computing, the designers that shaped and colored the user's interaction aren't given so much attention. One of those designers is Susan Kare, whose work is scattered throughout the classic Mac OS, and still prevails in parts of OS X. In an article from PLoS published a couple of days ago, her earliest work is shown — a large amount of which predates computer design software, so is drawn in pen on squared paper to create the pixel art that defines the icons — and should be instantly recognizable to anyone who's worked on a computer.

Kare's work extends outside of the Mac world too, with her creations appearing in Windows,...

Read: Brilliance Without Substance -- Don Norman on Design Education

2011-11-23T08:33:00.001-05:00

Engineering could also use some shaking up.

http://m.core77.com/blog/columns/design_education_brilliance_without_substanc...

Find: User Experience and Experience Design

2011-11-23T05:47:00.001-05:00

A great intro to ux and xd. How will your design be woven into
people's narratives? What personal needs does it meet?

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/user_experience_and_experience...

Find: The modernist, high tech past and present of a Raleigh building -- what makes this city great

2011-11-19T10:30:00.001-05:00

A great example of 60s modern design, built for IBM research, now restored and home to the junior league and brooks bell, a marketing analytics firm. A wonderful example of design and tech coming together, and improving the city while honoring its past.

Just down the street, Across the street from the char grill on hillsborough.

Thanks to the goodnight raleigh blog and John Morris.

The Junior League Center For Community Leadership

The new Morgan Street entrance

Since the 1920s, the Junior League of Raleigh has improved the community and the lives of those within it through education, outreach, and voluntarism. About a year ago, the organization moved in to the lower floor of a former IBM research facility on Hillsborough Street near the Capitol Building.

Often overlooked, this 1960s commercial building is a fine example of the International Style. It has the distinctive flair characteristic of its highly accomplished architect, George Matsumoto, along with a rejuvenated new appearance.

A History of Serving Raleigh

At the time the Junior League was formed (then called the Junior Guild), there were similar groups of women organized for the bettering of their community. Not long after the formation, they joined with the Association of Junior Leagues International.

Bargain Box in Cameron Village

One of the most visible examples of the legacy of the Junior League of Raleigh is Bargain Box, a thrift store located in Cameron Village. Since its founding in 1951, Bargain Box has contributed clothing and other items to those in need as well as a substantial amount of resources toward the Junior League’s outreach efforts.

Since then, the women of the Junior League have funded a Boys and Girls club for Wake County, co-sponsored the restoration of the Mordecai House, created SAFEchild (a non-profit agency dedicated to eliminating child abuse), among many other causes that have improved the lives of countless Wake County residents.

Publisher of a Primary Source for this Blog

The Junior League has long played a role in historic preservation and celebrating local history across the country, and here in Raleigh the League is no different.

Among their other many preservation and awareness efforts was the publishing of a book in 1967 which has always been my number one Raleigh reference guide: North Carolina’s...

Spotted: Smartphones find niche in human behaviour tests

2011-11-15T08:34:00.001-05:00

Good idea. Amazon Turk is great, but timing is difficult with it.

Smartphones find niche in human behaviour tests

Researchers are using innovative tools to perform psychological experiments a lot faster than they used to.

Experts believe the number of smartphone users worldwide will top the 1 billion mark by 2013.

Now an international team of scientists has taken advantage of smartphone technology to examine the mental processes involved in how humans remember, think, speak and solve problems.

Presented in the journal PLoS ONE, the findings demonstrate how these tiny tools can dramatically change cognitive science research.

The study was funded in part by the O-CODE (‘Cracking the orthographic code’) project, which has clinched a European Research Council (ERC) grant worth EUR 2.2 million under the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).

Read article

Find: A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

2011-11-12T19:12:00.001-05:00

A great screed on the untapped (hah) potential of touch.

Notice the name drop of our faculty member, don bitzer.

http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/

Talk: Insomniac Games' Chad Dezern to Speak Tuesday, 11/15 @ 6pm in 1231 EB2

2011-11-10T14:05:00.001-05:00

Insomniac Games is known for Ratchet and Clank.

Here's the abstract:

Every project starts with big ideas and limitless optimism. Reality sets in during production; deadlines force scope changes, and great ideas end up on the cutting room floor. This presentation is about harnessing the excitement of the initial brainstorm. It’s about learning when to push, when to let go, and what to do to get as many great ideas as possible into a shipped game.

From: Ken Tate <tate@csc.ncsu.edu>

CSC Students, Faculty & Staff,

The NC State Department of Computer Science is very pleased to have Chad Dezern, NC Studio Director of Insomniac Games (creators of the Ratchet & Clank franchise), join us as the next featured speaker in the Fidelity Investments "Leadership in Technology" Executive Speakers Series on Tuesday, November 15th at 6 pm in Room 1231 EB2.

The title of his talk is "The Care and Feeding of Ideas" and an abstract is provided below.

The talk is free and open to the public, and ample free parking is available after 5 pm. Speaker bio and additional information available on the series web page.

Note to CSC Graduate Students - These lectures have been approved by the CSC Graduate Oversight Committee to count toward the required lectures for graduate students.

Note to CSC Undergraduates - Several of our professors and lecturers provide extra credit for attending the FI series talks; be sure to ask! I will be located down front after the talk to sign off on any required paperwork!

*****In addition, Julie Hentila of Fidelity Investment plans to be on hand before the talk (around 5:15 pm)

to speak with students about career opportunities! (intern & fulltime new grad hires)*****

Chad Dezern is the Studio Director at Insomniac Games’ studio in Durham, North Carolina. He oversees all aspects of creative development and content creation, most recently for Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One. Chad started in the games industry in 1995 as a production artist. He joined Insomniac in 1998. Chad was the Art Director for Resistance 2, Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. He was the Environment Art Director for Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet: Deadlocked. Before that he contributed production art to the Ratchet & Clank and Spryo the Dragon series. Chad serves on the Board of Directors for the Triangle Games Initiative and on the Advisory Board for North Carolina State’s Digital Games Research Center. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1994 with a B.F.A. in illustration.

This is our 3rd and final Fidelity Investments talk of the fall. We hope you will be able to join us.

Thanks,

Ken Tate

Follow NC State Computer Science on Twitter - @cscncsu and Facebook - csc.ncsu

Benjamin Watson
Director, Design Graphics Lab | Associate Professor, Computer Science, NC State Univ.

919-513-0325 | designgraphics.ncsu.edu | @dgllab

Find: Urbanized -- A Conversation with Gary Hustwit

2011-11-09T23:52:00.001-05:00

Helvetica and objectified were great. This one is on urban design.

Urbanized: A Conversation with Gary Hustwit

First, Helvetica. Then, Objectified. Now, Urbanized. You might think Gary Hustwit, director of the recently completed trilogy of films on design had a deep involvement with the design world prior to making Helvetica. He didn't. He worked in the music industry, made a few music films (including the acclaimed Wilco doc I am Trying to Break Your Heart), and tried his hand at designing a few typefaces. But, the trilogy simply grew out of a somewhat obsessive curiosity about design and how it happens, and a desire to reveal how it impacts our everyday.

Hustwit's status as a (former) design outsider is precisely what is so great about his films. He views the processes behind things like the creation of the New York City Subway Map and the detailed decisions made in designing the iPod, as novel and exciting. He asks questions a designer wouldn't, and tells the stories of design in a (somewhat) objective, journalistic way. His films reveal the processes and decisions made by designers, but most essentially, they show the impact that these decisions have on us.

While all three of his last films may seem very specific at first glance, Hustwit takes a democratic spin on design with all, remaining very cognizant of telling the story simply and to the largest audience that may be interested. He wanted to talk to designers about design, but he has no desire to make films that just speak to designers. Urbanized, the final film in his trilogy, focuses on the design of cities. Hustwit's approach, emphasizing how design affects us all, comes across most clearly in this film. More importantly, he reveals how ordinary people can affect design.

Illuminating this is Hustwit's response to the notion that a trilogy on design, starting with graphic and moving to industrial, would naturally move to architecture. In response, Hustwit explains, "I've always been interested in architecture, but there have been a lot of documentaries about architects and about architecture. But mostly I wanted to explore architecture in the context of the city rather than just looking at buildings. I was more interested in the public realm than the private realm of just buildings; and also, how those two interact."

Hustwit continued, "I like the idea of showing how design affects our lives and then showing the people that are responsible for that design. In this case, that happens to be as much ordinary citizens as trained professionals."

Detroit

Helvetica and Objectified a...

Find: a preview of the 3d maps coming to ios, by C3 Technologies

2011-11-09T23:45:00.001-05:00

Apple recently bought them. Seems they use image based rendering, not polygons. Looks better than google, they claim accuracy of one foot.

C3 Technologies' 3D Mapping Looks Freaking Amazing

#more

What could be better than Google Maps? C3 Technologies' stunning 3D city displays, which let you rotate, zoom and pan through the city as if you'd modeled it all on your computer. The technology, which uses footage captured from airplanes and processed through a formerly proprietary military missile-guidance system, absolutely must be seen to be believed. Check out San Francisco, starting around 2:00:

(more...)

Find: RISD president John Maeda on bringing design and engineering together

2011-11-09T23:20:00.001-05:00

See the video behind the link and the risd site at the stem to steam link.

You go John.

Interview with RISD president John Maeda (VIDEO)

#more

Last week John Maeda, President of the Rhode Island School of Design and author of The Laws of Simplicity visited the frog San Francisco studio. John presented to a group of RISD alumni and frogs about how the school is responding and influencing the world around it, and updated us on an initiative he is spearheading called "STEM to STEAM". STEM represents a movement to refocus education in the United States on the specific fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM to STEAM seeks to add Art to that formula, something I entirely agree on. The problems that will challenge us in the decades to come will not be the same as yesterday. Creativity is not a silver bullet, but coupling it with our more traditional focus on left brain learning will surely yield new results.

Before the presentation, I sat down with John in our studio library and we talked about what he is passionate about, as well as trading a few RISD stories. There are several RISD alum at frog spread throughout the world including Executive Creative Director Nick de la Mare (MID'95), and Creative Director Jonas Damon (BFA'93 ID). I myself am an alum (BFA'98 ID). Check out the video, which is a bit of a sneak peak into the type of content that will be covered in Designmind's upcoming "Passion" issue, and please, support STEM to STEAM! [Ed Note: For more info about STEM, read Andy Polaine's column from September's Design Education issue.]

(more...)

Find: Ultimate Battlefield 3 Simulator

2011-11-08T17:09:00.001-05:00

Um, okay, that is awesome.

Via Christopher Healey.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

A tip from some students at UNC-CH. In case you haven't seen this YouTube video yet:

A game show in the UK built the ultimate Battlefield 3 simulator.

An enclosed igloo dome environment. 5-projector full surround HD video. Omnidirectional motorized treadmill so you can walk/run in 360-degrees at any speed to control your character. Infrared-tracking on a handheld gun to shoot. 800 LED lights to match the game's lighting. Kinects to track jumping and crouching.

And…

an array of paintball guns that shoot you when you get shot in the game.

The end of the video shows a British SAS solider testing the simulator. Very impressive.

Report: The Most Interesting Papers at the Infovis Conference (VisWeek 2011)

2011-11-08T02:34:00.001-05:00

I also liked gestalt lines, though I'm not sure I understand the name itself yet.

Our own quilts work is mentioned. Thanks Kim and info aesthetics! Definitely agree that they have a steeper learning curve than node link diagrams; we designed them for expert use. That said, with instruction, novices understood quilts well.

The Most Interesting Papers at the Infovis Conference (VisWeek 2011)

This post was written by Kim Rees, a partner at Periscopic (@periscopic), an interactive design firm specializing in data visualization and information presentation.

#more

VisWeek has come and gone, but you can still get your fill by finding most of the papers online. I was able to attend most of the InfoVis and some of the TVCG tracks, and was really excited by much of the work.

While many of the research was focused on trying to "do something better," there was one paper that presented a novel, new type of data visualization. GestaltLines (PDF) by Ulrik Brandes and Nick Bobo of the University of Konstanz used balance to visualize dyadic relationships. Even in its most basic form, a 'Gestaltline' shows type, extent, and time of the relationship. Color is left as a degree of freedom to encode other variables. Using a sparkline or multivariate glyph approach, a gestaltline can easily be placed within text as a dataword. The technique seems like a very intuitive way of viewing relationships.

Another talk I found intriguing was called Discursis (or "Conceptual Recurrence Plots" according to the paper title) by Daniel Angus, Andrew Smith and Janet Wile. By using colored squares plotted on the diagonal, this method visualizes the strength of engagement in a dialogue. Using doctor/patient conversations as their case study, Discursis easily showed which meetings were beneficial to the patient. I can see this method being applied to a number of scenarios.

There were a number of papers dealing with optimizing edge bundling and improving visual routing. Of the latter, a good method (PDF) was provided by

Markus Steinberger, Manuela Waldner, Marc Streit, Alexander Lex, and Dieter Schmalstie of Graz University of Technology which preserves as much of the context, whether it's text, image, map, etc., while still providing visually clear links between highlighted items. Their paper is a g...

Report: Telling Stories With Data website

2011-11-06T21:19:00.001-05:00

narrative viz workshop website.

http://data-stories.com/

Report: Telling Stories with Data – VisWeek 2011

2011-11-06T21:16:00.001-05:00

A report from the narrative viz workshop at the recent viz conference.

Telling Stories with Data – VisWeek 2011

Note from Nathan: Last week, visualization researchers from all over gathered in Providence, Rhode Island for VisWeek 2011. One of the workshops, Telling Stories with Data, focused on data as narrative and what that means for visualization. This is a guest post by the organizers: Nick Diakopoulos, Joan DiMicco, Jessica Hullman, Karrie Karahalios, and Adam Perer.

"Data storytelling" is all the rage on websites ranging from international news outlets, to political and economic organizations, to personal blogs. Indeed, this trend has captured the attention of those who research and work in information visualization. Scores of both aspiring and seasoned visual storytellers descended on the Telling Stories with Data workshop that we organized this year (the 2nd installment of the workshop) to discuss and learn about visualization storytelling tools, issues, and contexts. The workshop took place in Providence, Rhode Island on October 23rd and was part of the yearly international VisWeek conference which itself drew about 1,000 attendees.

As in many technological fields, those interested in "narrative visualization" face the challenge of connecting with like-minded others across the oft un-negotiated boundary between academic research and practical applications or designs. Yet these groups have much to learn from one another. To bring visualization research in contact with visualization practice, we structured the workshop line-up of speakers to include both academicians (e.g. from Harvard, UC Berkeley, UIUC) and people from industry (e.g. New York Times, Microsoft Research, OECD, Workbook Project). The talks were organized into three blocks: (1) tools for structuring and sharing, (2) communicating with visualization, and (3) storytelling in context.

In the rest of this post we'll share some highlights and take-aways from the talks and discussions that took place throughout the workshop. And for a fuller experience don't miss the set of provocative questions [pdf] we used to instigate discussions after each session.

The workshop got started with a few talks that dove right into talking about the state of the art in visualization tools that support data storytelling. First to speak in the tools session was

Spotted: Nick Diakopoulos » Unpacking Visualization Rhetoric

2011-11-06T21:11:00.001-05:00

A sample of a nice looking paper at the recent viz conference on
visualization as persuasion.

http://www.nickdiakopoulos.com/2011/08/13/unpacking-visualization-rhetoric/

Spotted: MUSE to sift the emails of yesteryear

2011-11-05T21:49:00.001-04:00

Interesting tool from Jeff Heer and others at Stanford.

MUSE to sift the emails of yesteryear

A software tool called Memories Using Email (MUSE) lets you dig through your email archive and reminisce on your digital past

Find: A Site for Data Scientists to Prove Their Skills and Make Money

2011-11-05T12:17:00.001-04:00

Focused on data mining, but certainly viz has a role.

A Site for Data Scientists to Prove Their Skills and Make Money

Kaggle connects data scientists with organizations that need someone to extract meaning from their data, like insurance companies that want to know the likelihood that a patient will be hospitalized.

Find: How Microsoft killed its Courier tablet -- how "free create" was stifled

2011-11-03T00:38:00.001-04:00

Interesting lessons here in design and creativity in corporations.
Someone should write a book about this. Where is allard now?

http://m.cnet.com/Article.rbml?nid=20128013&cid=null&bcid=&bid=-75

Find: Google Reader redesign critiqued by former Reader Product Manager. This looks like a job for testing!

2011-11-02T22:25:00.001-04:00

We need to measure information gain per time and per interaction, and compare that to engagement. How?

Google Reader redesign gets critiqued by former Reader Product Manager

#more

On first glance — and maybe second and third — Google appears to have just smashed the Gmail and Docs visual aesthetic together with the recent Google Reader redesign, so it's no surprise that it hasn't gotten the most welcome response. Ex-Reader Product Manager Brian Shih dives into the flawed visual and functional redesign decisions on his personal blog, noting Reader was built to shine at just one thing: consuming information, quickly. Google+, on the other hand, is built around social, and the resulting mix shows little regard for the underlying services. Plus, there's the "whole giant header bar with no real estate saved for actual reading."

Thanks, DanTheScienceMan

Opp: Join us for the 2012 Google GRAD CS Forum!

2011-10-28T15:20:00.001-04:00

Looks like a great opportunity. Open to non-citizens and masters students, deadline nov 14. Abstract only.

Join us for the 2012 Google GRAD CS Forum!

Google Student Blog

We are happy to announce that the 2012 GRAD CS Forum application is now open!

As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to encouraging students of underrepresented backgrounds in technology to pursue graduate study, we are pleased to host the 2012 Google Graduate Researchers in Academia of Diverse backgrounds (GRAD) CS Forum. This forum will bring together students who are historically underrepresented in the field to connect with one another and with Google.

#more

January 2010 brought the launch of the initial Google Graduate Researchers in Academia of Diverse backgrounds (GRAD) CS Forum. Over 70 students from universities across North America came together to meet Googler developers and researchers to discuss topics ranging from security, to databases, and machine learning.

During the second day, researchers mapped out their own research topics during the “unconference” style portion.

The 2012 GRAD CS Forum will invite up to 75 computer scientists to an all-expenses paid forum that will run Wednesday evening through Friday afternoon on January 18–20 at Google’s offices in Mountain View, CA and San Francisco, CA.

The Google GRAD CS Forum will include technical talks from established researchers – both from Google and universities – and a unique occasion to build and strengthen networks with other emerging researchers. Students will also enjoy tours of the Googleplex, have the opportunity to meet with Google engineers in their focus areas, and have fun exploring the San Francisco Bay Area.

Eligibility Requirements
Applicants must:

be a computer science (or related technical discipline) graduate student currently enrolled in a Masters or PhD program at a university in North America
demonstrate academic excellence and leadership in the computing field
maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.3 on a 4.0 scale or 4.3 on a 5.0 scale or equivalent in their current program

How to Apply
Applicants will be asked to provide:

a current copy of your resume
unofficial or official copies of your transcripts from both your undergraduate and graduate degree-granting institutions
brief thesis abstract or description of your current research (500 words or less)

Please note that recommendation letters are not required.

The forum is open to all qualified graduate students, and is committed to addressing diversity in our company and in the technology industry. Students who are a member of a group that is historically under-represented in the technology industry are encouraged to apply, including women, Native American, African American and Hispanic students as well as students with disabilities.

Please send any questions directly to gradcsforum@google.com. We look forward to reviewing your applications!

Application Deadline: Sunday, November 13, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. PST

Apply today!

Posted by Liz Arnold, University Programs Specialist

Sent with Reeder

Job: Viz faculty at Texas am

2011-10-27T15:20:00.001-04:00

TAMU_Visualization_Search_CS.pdf Download this file

Texas am has a good viz program

Begin forwarded message:

Job: trading firm

2011-10-26T14:22:00.001-04:00

Via Dr. Rouskas

***

Dr. Rouskas,

I am a Corporate Recruiter for Quantlab Financial, a Houston-based, quantitative, high frequency trading firm. One of my coworkers and Research leads, Aaron George, recommended I reach out to you to pass along information about our Spring internship and Post Doctoral opportunities around your network as he is an Alma Mater of NCSU. We are looking to hire Computational Science Interns and Post Doctoral Scientists for the Spring to work in our Research department and information is included below. We would appreciate any assistance you can provide in forwarding this out to your network and/or posting anywhere you see fit. We’d love to build a relationship with you and NCSU!

Thank you for any assistance you can provide!

Paige Edwards
Recruiter
713.400.5948 Direct
713.261.3478 Blackberry
713.333.5464 Fax

Quantlab Financial LLC
4200 Montrose Blvd
Suite 200
Houston Texas 77006
USA

Quantlab is hiring Paid Interns and Post Doc Scientists for Spring 2012 and on! We’d like to ask if this information can be posted on your bulletin boards for current PhD students, recent PhDs andPost Docs.

#more

Founded in 1998, Quantlab is a dynamic, technology-driven firm supporting a large-scale quantitative trading operation across a wide range of global financial markets. In an effort to explore new research directions, we are currently seeking Research Interns and Post Doctoral Scientists for the Spring of 2012. In collaboration with Quantlab’s Research teams, you will work on challenging, results-oriented projects using an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems in data modeling and computational finance. In addition, you will enjoy an informal and intellectually stimulating environment while working with accomplished Quantitative Researchers who have a record for developing highly successful, quantitative trading strategies. Perks include great pay, catered lunches and free beverages, an informal and close-knit environment, as well as networking activities and company events.

Prior exposure to quantitative finance is useful but not required.

Requirements:

Graduate work in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, or related fields.
Exceptional analytical skills and experience in computational science.
Strong technical communication skills and the discipline to document your work.
Research Interns are 2-6 month appointments with a stipend of $5,000/month.
Post Doctoral Scientists are one year appointments and stipends will be based on experience.

It’s easy to apply! Simply follow the appropriate link, fill out our application and submit your resume!

Quantlab Computational Science Intern - http://tbe.taleo.net/NA11/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=QUANTLAB&cws=1&rid=238
Post Doctoral Computational Scientist - http://tbe.taleo.net/NA11/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=QUANTLAB&cws=1&rid=239

Quantlab Financial is headquartered in Houston, TX, recently ranked 2011’s Number One Best City in America for IT Jobs by Modis, and Fast Company magazine’s 2011 City of the Year. Our office space is located in the Montrose area of Houston, a diverse and pedestrian-friendly area close to downtown, the museum district, two major universities, and within walking distance of some of Houston’s best restaurants.

Find: Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

2011-10-24T21:32:00.001-04:00

Dieter Rams is an industrial designer, but these principles are
universal: they apply to interfaces, visualization, and code.

http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/dieterrams/gooddesign

Find: Toshiba 6.1" Display with Resolution of 2560x1600, 495ppi -- 2x iPhone display res

2011-10-22T15:21:00.001-04:00

A 12x9 array of these please.

Toshiba Releases 6.1" Display with Resolution of 2560x1600

Pretty much ever since the iPhone 4 with retina display was launched, resolutions have played a major role in smartphone market. In September, Samsung unveiled Galaxy S II HD LTE, which sports a 4.65" 1280x720 display. That was the first smartphone with HD resolution (720p). Now there are already a few phones with HD resolution, for example Samsung Galaxy Nexus and LG Optimus LTE. Higher resolutions are not only courtesy of smartphones as "retina" displays are coming to tablets as well. On May, Samsung showed off a 10.1" panel with resolution of 2560x1600 - resolution that's only seen in high-end 30" monitors.

Toshiba is taking the resolution battle one step further by releasing a 6.1" LCD with 2560x1600 resolution. In terms of pixels per inch (PPI), that is 495. Below is a table comparing displays and their PPIs.

Comparison of display PPIs
	Screen Size	Resolution	PPI
iPhone 4/4S	3.5"	960x640	329.65
Samsung Nexus	4.65"	1280x720	315.83
Samsung's Unreleased Tablet Panel	10.1"	2560x1600	298.9
Toshiba's New Panel	6.1"	2560x1600	494.9

As you can see, Toshiba's new panel is a clear winner, and its PPI is 50% greater than iPhone 4/4S's, which has the second highest PPI. There is no word on the panel type but the viewing angles are 176 degrees, which hints toward IPS. Toshiba also claims 1000:1 contrast ratio and 61% NTSC color gamut.

Find: Lytro's new light field camera lets you focus after you take a picture

2011-10-22T09:07:00.001-04:00

One of the more exciting ideas out of siggraph is recent years is becoming product. Exciting that it's so small and cheap. Mention of mobile possibilities.

Lytro's new light field camera lets you focus after you take a picture

Imaging scientist Ren Ng's years of research into capturing "light fields" using increasingly high-resolution digital imaging sensors have finally come to fruition. Ng's company, Lytro, unveiled its first consumer product on Wednesday—a digital camera capable of capturing "living images" that can be infinitely refocused after capture. While the new camera is designed to change the way we capture and share snapshots, the technology has the potential to radically alter how all photographs are made.

The new Lytro camera is a small rectangular tube of aluminum, with an f/2 lens on one end and a small 2" touchscreen on the other. The only controls are a power button, shutter button, and a slider to control the 8x zoom range of its lens. There are no controls for aperture, shutter speed, or focus—because the Lytro doesn't need them. The Lytro is probably the closest thing to "point-and-shoot" photography that has ever existed in the digital era.

Read the comments on this post

Find: Jim Hunt Library Progress, Photos

2011-10-21T13:45:00.001-04:00

Looks awesome. Right across from the lab.

Jim Hunt Library Progress, Photos

A year until move-in, NC State’s Jim Hunt Library is progressing nicely.

Course: Advanced Computer Graphics for Game Engines

2011-10-19T05:09:00.001-04:00

CSC 591
Advanced Computer Graphics for Game Engines

The realism race in interactive graphics continues apace. How do the designers and engineers at gaming companies such as Epic and EA create such amazing visual simulations? Take this course to find out how, and to prepare yourself for working with and extending their technology, whether in the gaming industry itself, or in any of the many new fields in which it is being applied.

Instructor:
Ben Watson, Associate Professor, Computer Science

Content and structure:
This course is an introduction to advanced graphics techniques used in computer game engines. Students will learn about game engines, spatial hierarchy, collision detection, physics, animation, lighting and shader programming. Guest experts from the RTP gaming community, including companies such as Epic Games and Sparkplug Games, will provide real world context.

This is a mixed format course that includes lectures, readings, student presentations, lab work and a significant programming project that occupies roughly half of the semester. The course will meet twice a week. The first day each week will be dedicated to lecture, while the second will be a reading, discussion and lab day: student presentation and discussion of readings, of current assignment or project state, and bootstrapping lab work.

Prerequisites:
562 (introductory graphics) or equivalent

Schedule:
Spring 2012, MoWe 1250 to 205p

Course: visual interfaces for mobile devices

2011-10-19T04:21:00.002-04:00

CSC 495
Visual Interfaces for Mobile Devices

Mobiles are the future

Today's phones have as much processing power as the original Xbox
There are over 5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, 3/4 of those are in developing nations
Nearly two billion phones were sold worldwide in 2010, vs. only 350 million PCs
Mobile sales are growing 10x faster than PC sales

To succeed in that future, you need to know how to

Build mobile apps
Create graphics for mobiles
Create effective mobile interfaces
Work in teams

Our course is designed to give you those skills

Instructor:
Ben Watson, Associate Professor, Computer Science

Content:
This course is an intensive introduction to the design and development of mobile interfaces and applications. By the course's end, student teams will design and build an interactive mobile app prototype for platforms such as iOS (iPhone, iPad) and Android (Nexus, Galaxy Tab). Along the way, students will learn mobile design technique, including ideation, rapid prototyping, and evaluation; and mobile technology, including hardware, usage environment, graphics, interfaces and programming. Guest experts from the RTP interaction design community, such as Allscripts, IBM and Epic Games will provide real world context.

Prerequisites:
CSC students: CSC 316

Schedule:
Spring 2012, MW 350p-505p

Enroll now!

Job: web developer @ IBM

2011-10-18T16:41:00.001-04:00

Folks,

A job opportunity at IBM in the Triangle. Chris Paul is a regular visitor to our classes.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Hi Ben: I hope you are well.

I have a university hiring slot for a web developer. The project is LotusLive (www.lotuslive.com) and the effort, essentially, is development duties on the team responsible for this site....not the cloud services. This individual would also work with the design team as part of our UI Innovation Initiative.

Any Dec grad candidates?

Paper: Developing and evaluating Quilts for depiction of large layered graphs

2011-10-18T14:59:00.001-04:00

Ju Hee Bae just had her paper "Developing and evaluating Quilts for depiction of

large layered graphs" accepted to the IEEE Information Visualization conference, a conference with a 26% acceptance rate. This paper shows that in many cases, complex layered graphs (like those used for genealogies, but larger) are best visualized with the DGL's new visualization, Quilts. Congratulations, Ju Hee!

Ju Hee Bae and Benjamin Watson. 2011. Developing and evaluating Quilts for depiction of large layered graphs. IEEE Trans. Visualization and Computer Graphics, to appear. (project page).

Spotted: Using Normalized Compression Distance for image similaritymeasurement: an experimental study

2011-10-18T09:14:00.001-04:00

Not a bad idea, seems results were mixed.

Using Normalized Compression Distance for image similarity measurement: an experimental study

Abstract

Similarity metrics are widely used in computer graphics. In this paper, we will concentrate on a new, algorithmic complexity-based metric called Normalized Compression Distance. It is a universal distance used to compare strings. This measure has also been used in computer graphics for image registration or viewpoint selection. However, there is no previous study on how the measure should be used: which compressor and image format are the most suitable. This paper presents a practical study of the Normalized Compression Distance (NCD) applied to color images. The questions we try to answer are: Is NCD a suitable metric for image comparison? How robust is it to rotation, translation, and scaling? Which are the most adequate image formats and compression algorithms? The results of our study show that NCD can be used to address some of the selected image comparison problems, but care must be taken on the compressor and image format selected.Content Type Journal Article

Category Original Article
Pages 1-22
DOI 10.1007/s00371-011-0651-2
Authors
- Pere-Pau Vázquez, Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics (LSI), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
- Jordi Marco, Departament de Llenguatges i Sistemes Informàtics (LSI), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Talk: Jud Bowman of Appia to Speak Tuesday, 10/25 @ 6pm in 1231 EB2

2011-10-17T12:35:00.001-04:00

Bowman runs a triangle-leading mobiles company focused on app stores.

Best,

Ben

The NC State Department of Computer Science is very pleased to have Jud Bowman, Founder & CEO of Appia, Inc, join us as the next featured speaker in the Fidelity Investments "Leadership in Technology" Executive Speakers Series on Tuesday, October 25th at 6 pm in Room 1231 EB2.

The title of his talk is "Overcoming the Challenges of Young Entrepreneurship: How to Start a Successful Company in Your 20s" and an abstract is provided below.

The talk is free and open to the public, and ample free parking is available after 5 pm. Speaker bio and additional information available on the series web page.

Note to CSC Graduate Students

- These lectures have been approved by the CSC Graduate Oversight Committee to count toward the required lectures for graduate students.

Note to CSC Undergraduates - Several of our professors and lecturers provide extra credit for attending the FI series talks; be sure to ask! I will be located down front after the talk to sign off on any required paperwork!

In addition, Fidelity Investment plans to have representatives on hand before and after the talk to speak with students about career opportunities!

Jud Bowman is the founder and CEO of Appia and has helped grow the company into the largest cross platform, open app marketplace in the world. Prior to Appia, Jud co-founded Motricity (Nasdaq: MOTR) in September 1999 and was instrumental in growing the company to more than $100 million in annual revenues and 500 employees globally. Jud was named one of the world's 'Top 100 Young Innovators' by MIT's Technology Review and one of 'Tech's Best Young Entrepreneurs' by Business Week in 2007. He was also recognized as a winner of the Ernst & Young 'Entrepreneur of the Year' award in the Carolinas in 2001 and 2010. Jud is currently on leave from Stanford University, where he was named a President's Scholar, and is a graduate of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics.

This is our 2nd Fidelity Investments talk of the fall. We hope you will be able to join us.

Thanks,

Ken Tate

Follow NC State Computer Science on Twitter - @cscncsu and Facebook - csc.ncsu

**********************************

Talk Abstract - From gaining the respect of investors to building and managing a team, starting a company at any age is difficult, but even more so when you just graduated from high school. Jud Bowman started his first company at age 18 and has spent the last 12 years navigating the challenges of young entrepreneurship. In this talk, Jud will share the story of how he built two successful companies in his 20s, and the lessons he learned along the way.

Opp: SMART Scholarships from ASEE / DoD

2011-10-11T16:14:00.001-04:00

US citizens, deadline December 1, service at DoD facility for a while when done.

***

The SMART scholarship program is a very attractive program providing full tuition and education-related fees for US citizens pursuing graduate degrees in engineering, including Computer Science. There is a service requirement requiring employment at a Department of Defense sponsoring facility for a defined period following graduation. The deadline for applications is December 1, 2011.

More information is at

http://smart.asee.org/

Memorium: Steve Jobs, in His Own Words

2011-10-10T03:57:00.001-04:00

Good article with Steve talking for himself.

Longform.org: Steve Jobs, in His Own Words

Every weekend, Longform.org shares a collection of great stories from its archive with Slate. For daily picks of new and classic nonfiction, check out Longform.org or follow @longformorg on Twitter.

Course: spring 2012 undergraduate mobile techs course

2011-10-04T14:59:00.001-04:00

Ad477_S12.pdf Download this file

Opp: 2012 NSF Asia and Pacific Fellowship Program Now Open

2011-10-04T14:56:00.001-04:00

This is a great program I took part in back in maybe 93?

Eligible for US citizens or US residents. Odds are very good (maybe 50%).

Funds travel, language training, and more for 10 weeks.

Let me know if you're interested, deadline November 9.

Best,

Ben

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Margery Page <page@ncsu.edu>
Date: Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 2:53 PM
Subject: [csc-gradstd] Fwd: Fwd: 2012 NSF EAPSI Fellowship Program Now Open
To: gradstd@csc.ncsu.edu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ramaj, Ergys<eramaj@nsf.gov>
Date: Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 10:21 AM
Subject: 2012 NSF EAPSI Fellowship Program Now Open
To: eapsi@nsfsi.org

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC SUMMER INSTITUTES
FOR U.S. GRADUATE STUDENTS - 2012 APPLICATION NOW OPEN
(Link: www.nsfsi.org )
The National Science Foundation (NSF) East Asia and Pacific Summer
Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI) is a flagship
international fellowship program for developing the next generation of
globally engaged U.S. scientists and engineers knowledgeable about
the Asian and Pacific regions. The Summer Institutes are hosted by
foreign counterparts committed to increasing opportunities for young
U.S. researchers to work in research facilities and with host mentors
abroad. Fellows are supported to participate in eight-week research
experiences at host laboratories in Australia, China, Japan (10
weeks), Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan from June to August.
The program provides a $5,000 summer stipend, round-trip airfare to
the host location, living expenses abroad, and an introduction to the
society, culture, language, and research environment of the host
location.
The 2012 application is now open and will close at 5:00 pm proposer’s
local time on November 9, 2011. Application instructions are
available online at www.nsfsi.org. For further information concerning
benefits, eligibility, and tips on applying, applicants are encouraged
to visit www.nsf.gov/eapsi or www.nsfsi.org.
NSF recognizes the importance of enabling U.S. researchers and
educators to advance their work through international collaborations
and the value of ensuring that future generations of U.S. scientists
and engineers gain professional experience beyond this nation's
borders early in their careers. The program is intended for U.S.
graduate students pursuing studies in fields supported by the National
Science Foundation. Women, minorities, and persons with disabilities
are strongly encouraged to apply for the EAPSI. Applicants must be
enrolled in a research-oriented master's or PhD program and be U.S.
citizens or U.S. permanent residents by the application deadline date.
Students in combined bachelor/master degree programs must have
matriculated from the undergraduate degree program by the application
deadline date.
The first Summer Institutes began in Japan in 1990, and to date over
2,400 U.S. graduate students have participated in the program.
Should you have any questions, please contact the EAPSI Help Desk by
email at eapsi@nsfsi.org or by phone at 1-866-501-2922.
To unsubscribe, send a message to mj2@lists.ncsu.edu with the body:
"unsubscribe csc-gradstd"
To permanently remove your email from gradstd@csc.ncsu.edu (csc-gradstd@lists.ncsu.edu) send a message to help@csc.ncsu.edu with your address and the list name.

Course: Spring 2012 Mobile Technologies graduate seminar

2011-10-04T14:48:00.001-04:00

Ad547_S12.pdf Download this file

From: Adriana de Souza e Silva <adriana@souzaesilva.com>

Hi David, Pat, Michael and Ben,

I'm teaching two courses in the spring on Mobile Technologies. One is a graduate seminar (flyer attached). The other one is a 400-level course. If you could please distribute this flyer to interested students, I'd appreciate it. I'm sending the undergraduate class flyer shortly.

Best,
Adriana

Spotted: HPG '11 -- acm high performance graphics symposium

2011-10-02T19:54:00.001-04:00

Premier event in gpu rendering. Nice looking papers on global illumination.

HPG '11

HPG '11 HPG '11: High Performance Graphics
August 05 - 07, 2011
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

HPG '11: Proceedings of the ACM SIGGRAPH Symposium on High Performance Graphics

Event: UIE Webinar — Brainstorming Games for Team Creativity with Dave Gray

2011-10-01T02:05:00.001-04:00

UIE Webinar:Gamestorming — Brainstorming Games for Team Creativity: Creating an Environment for Innovation with Dave Gray

UIE Webinar

Location

Railinc

Cary, NC 27513

United States

See map: Google Maps

Professional Development Events

https://triupa.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=87&club_id=649261&item_id=192798

October 20, 2011 - 1:30pm - 3:00pm

Railinc

Cary, NC 27513

United States

See map: Google Maps

Sent from my iPhone

Creativity requires not just individual spark, but organizational kindling

2011-09-26T04:51:00.001-04:00

Why we crave creativity but reject creative ideas

via www.sciencedaily.com on 9/26/11

Most people view creativity as an asset -- until they come across a creative idea. That's because creativity not only reveals new perspectives; it promotes a sense of uncertainty.

Find: RED 4K laser projector for the home teased, another quad hd harbinger

2011-09-23T02:24:00.001-04:00

Makes sense, since red already makes a camera. Lasers should have amazing contrast.

RED 4K laser projector for the home teased by CEO Jannard

RED’s never been shy with product teasers, to a fault, really, leading RED CEO Jim Jannard to proclaim an end to such pre-launch announcements. Still, an old dog, and all [...]

Find: Ivy Bridge GPU to Support Resolutions of up to 4096x4096 -- 8x HD

2011-09-20T02:56:00.001-04:00

Will be quite a while tho before the whole pipeline from production to delivery to display marches in something approaching lockstep.

Ivy Bridge GPU to Support Resolutions of up to 4096x4096

Thanks VR-Zone for the image!

IDF 2011 ended on last Thursday but there is still lots of data showing up because sites are processing the data they have gathered. VR-Zone is now reporting that Ivy Bridge's GPU will support resolutions of up to 4096x4096 (commonly referred as 4Kx4K). We took a deeper look at the IB GPU in our Ivy Bridge Architecture piece, but we missed this upgrade. Sandy Bridge's GPU supports only resolutions of up to 2560x1600, so this is a huge jump since 4Kx4K has over four times more pixels.

It's unlikely that we will see any 4Kx4K displays though, given that 16:9 is the standard nowadays (some higher-end are 16:10 though). That suggests a resolution of 4096x2304, which actually makes more sense given the bandwidth limitations. 4096x4096 at 60Hz with 24-bit color would require a bandwidth of roughly 36Gb/s, more than any of the current display interfaces supports (DisplayPort 1.2 is the king at 21.6Gb/s). 4096x2304 requires only ~20.2Gb/s, and that DP 1.2 can easily provide. 4096x4096 should, however, work with DP 1.2 by lowering the refresh rate to e.g. 30Hz, which would reduce the required bandwidth to be within DisplayPort's range.

Displays with +2560x1600 resolution are very rare and expensive at the moment though. Back in June, EIZO announced a 36" monitor with resolution of 4096x2160, with a whopping price tag of $36,000 (yes, that is three zeros). However, considering that 10.1" tablets with 2560x1600 will soon be reality, it sounds likely that displays with 4096x2XXX resolution will soon be available at reasonable price points too.

Source: VR-Zone

Sent from my iPhone

Spotted: Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

2011-09-17T15:08:00.001-04:00

Bernice is a leader in viz and perception

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

IBM Research has a paper online from Bernice Rogowitz and Lloyd Treinish investigating the many strategies of colormaps used in data visualization, in hopes of creating a more stringent rule-based approach that can more intelligently apply default structures. Included are many example visualizations like the one above.

Some of these ideas can be applied to more complex applications with multiple data sets in three dimensions, as illustrated in Figure 9. These data are from an analysis of various weather observations, which indicate the state of the atmosphere on November 19, 1997 at 01:00 local time in the San Jose area. Four distinct colormaps (two isomorphic and two segmented) are used to visualize four different variables using a variety of geometries registered into a single geographic scene. The choice of colormaps used for each of these variables and their realizations is based upon their spatial characteristics and the task associated with the visualization. For example, relatively noisy data such as wind speed are primarily mapped into luminance, while relatively smoothly varying data such as temperature are primarily mapped into opposing saturation pairs to impart a continuous representation. When contouring is selected as a technique, the data are mapped into a set of bands, to which a segmented colormap with perceived ordinality is applied.

via Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?.

Reach out to the community of Visualization and Graphics Experts by Advertising on VizWorld.com
Related posts:

Sent from my iPhone

Find: octanerender running on a VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs

2011-09-17T14:58:00.001-04:00

Looks good, but still not truly real time.

octanerender running on a VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs

A promotional video from RenderStream, providers of multi-GPU systems for rendering and science, does a great job of also promoting OctaneRender on multiple GPU’s.

octanerender demonstration running on a RenderStream VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs. In this video we demonstrate the rapid visual feedback one can expect when using an 8 GPU system in a detailed interior scene. We also show how well octanerender perfroms when scaling from 1-8 GPUs.

via octanerender running on a RenderStream VDACTr8 with 8 GTX 580 GPUs – YouTube.

Reach out to the community of Visualization and Graphics Experts by Advertising on VizWorld.com

Sent from my iPhone

Find: More Mobile Internet Users Than Wireline Users in the U.S. by 2015

2011-09-13T23:53:00.001-04:00

I buy this, but am not convinced that tabs will be a large part of bringing it about.

IDC: More Mobile Internet Users Than Wireline Users in the U.S. by 2015

The newest release of the IDC Worldwide New Media Market Model (NMMM) forecasts that the impact of smartphone and, especially, media tablet adoption will be so great that the number of users accessing the Internet through PCs will first stagnate and then slowly decline.

Sent from my iPhone

Degrees: University of Sydney's design computing: good idea

2011-09-12T00:13:00.001-04:00

Media lab is as close as I can get here in the states

University of Sydney

Abstract:

Design Computing:

The Bachelor of Design Computing is a unique degree that combines the creativity of design with the practical and technical knowledge of computing.

The program focuses on the creative, technical and aesthetic possibilities of computer-based design through he study of major areas: Design, Programming, Interaction and Modelling. The degree incorporates the knowledge learned in four major studios, which broaden your knowledge on significant themes in Design Computing, as well as develop your communication and design process skills.

The four studios are Digital Design; Interactive Design; Information Visualisation Design and Human Computer Experience Design. Students also receive a breadth of knowledge from study in other related disciplines from throughout the university. Learn more about student design projects from the Design Lab gallery.

Master of Interaction Design & Electronic Arts:

As technology becomes a greater part of our daily lives, there is a growing need for products, systems and devices that are functional, pleasurable and innovative to fit the needs of the user. The IDEA degree seeks to teach students the possibilities of such technologies and new applications and explore their relation to a number of emerging fields such as biotechnology, sustainability, social networking, global health and cultural diversity. Learn more about student design projects from the Design Lab gallery.

The Interaction Design and Electronic Arts (IDEA) program is the first of its kind in Australia to prepare students in the skills and knowledge of interaction possibilities offered by modern computing technologies.

The program collaborates with local industry partners in interaction design, offering students opportunities to experience and engage with commercial clients or engage in competitive internship opportunities. The program works on a two-year cycle and evolves as technology changes so students are exposed to the latest technology.

Find: Sony quad hd home projector signals the end of hd

2011-09-10T20:04:00.001-04:00

Here it comes. Stereo didn't do the trick, surprise! But I'll take a wall sized retinal display for sure. Even with this, a long way to go....

Sony’s VPL-VW1000ES 4K home theater projector signals the end of 1080p

In tacit admission that 1080p’s days are numbered, Sony just announced a 4K projector for the home. Yes, the home. While Sony’s been pushing 4K into digital cinemas for years, [...]

Meet: on using mechanical turk to perform visualization experiments

2011-09-09T15:37:00.001-04:00

Hey folks,

Last time we met and finished our discussion of this paper

Louis Bavoil. 2011. Multi-View Soft Shadows. NVIDIA white paper.

This week, we'll read and discuss a great paper by Heer from Stanford:

Heer & Bostock. 2010. Crowdsourcing Graphical Perception: Using Mechanical Turk to Assess Visualization Design. Proc. ACM CHI.

We'll probably follow this with some skims and spots.

See you soon,

Ben.

Read: Bavoil's multiview soft shadows

2011-09-09T15:31:00.001-04:00

We recently read the following paper:

Louis Bavoil. 2011. Multi-View Soft Shadows. NVIDIA white paper.

This paper described a method for implementing soft shadows in real time, using the same method used in global illumination: multiple sampling of area light sources. It's only recently that performing this in real time became possible. Like most nvidia white papers, this paper was short and sweet. We had the following comments:

It looks great! Probably because it's more correct than existing methods.
It runs quickly, at least for the 30K or so polygons casting shadows here.
Building the shadow buffers was performed in multipass, in this example, 28 passes. Although building the buffers was the fastest part of the algorithm in this example, if we scale up to more common model sizes (e.g. 1M triangles), and assume that they all cast shadows, building the map dominates, and the overall speed of this algorithm becomes far too slow (~33ms).
We see artifacts in the shadows (aliasing between sampled light points) when the light source becomes larger, especially when there is motion. If more light samples are needed, we will need more passes, making this algorithm still more expensive.

Find: Sony Preparing New 3D Headset for Japanese Release

2011-08-31T20:42:00.001-04:00

Ivan Sutherland lives! Oh wait, he does live. The ultimate geekware. Every politician needs one.

Sony Preparing New 3D Headset for Japanese Release

The HMZ-T1, the first iteration of a concept Sony demoed this past CES, will release in Japan on November 11, says Sony Japan.

Japan will serve as a test market for the futuristic piece of headgear, which boasts two 0.7-inch OLED panels each with a resolution of 1280x780. Sony says the experience compares to watching a 750-inch 3D screen from 20 meters away. The device, which also includes integrated 5.1 surround sound headphones, isn’t mobile, of course. It will need to be be tethered to its HDMI-ready processing unit.

Sony is expected to price the device at 60,000 yen ($783 US). The company’s currently mum about a release in other markets. Performance in Japan could make that decision for them.

Source: Sony, Engadget

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Job: Chair (Tier 2) in Digital Media (Visualization and Interaction Design)

2011-08-29T14:00:00.003-04:00

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wolfgang Stuerzlinger <wolfgang@cse.yorku.ca>
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 9:57 AM
Subject: Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Digital Media (Visualization and Interaction Design)
To: gi-steer@cs.ubc.ca

York University has an opening for a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Digital Media (Visualization and Interaction Design). For details, please see:
http://webapps.yorku.ca/academichiringviewer/specialads/FSE_CRCDigital_Media_web.pdf

Wolfgang
--
Wolfgang Stuerzlinger http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~wolfgang
York University, Toronto, Canada wolfgang@cse.yorku.ca

Job: Chair (Tier 2) in Digital Media (Visualization and Interaction Design)

2011-08-29T14:00:00.001-04:00

Wolfgang
--
Wolfgang Stuerzlinger http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~wolfgang
York University, Toronto, Canada wolfgang@cse.yorku.ca

Find: Quotes, Steve Jobs-Style. Good nutrition and inspiration here

2011-08-28T23:54:00.001-04:00

Money Quotes, Steve Jobs-Style

One of the things the world will miss most about Steve Jobs, now that he’s officially retired for a second time as Apple’s CEO, is his mouth.

Jobs is a master of hype, hyperbole and the catchy phrase — and his cocky performances, while clad always in jeans and turtleneck, were as entertaining as the products he was shucking.

Here’s a selection of some of the most entertaining things the man has said, organized by topic: innovation and design, fixing Apple, his greatest sales pitches, life’s lessons, taking the fight to the enemy and Pixar.

On Android vs. iOS

“It is worthwhile to remember that open systems don’t always win. Open versus closed is a smokescreen. Google likes to characterize Android as open and iOS as closed. We think this is disingenuous.”
— In October 2010, talking to analysts about the challenge from Google’s Android, which Apple perceived as a stab in the back by Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt — a member of Apple’s board of directors. Hark Oct. 18, 2010.

“Don’t be evil is a load of crap.”
— In January 2010 townhall with Apple employees, Jobs tore into Google for getting into the smartphone business, saying Google got into smartphones, and Apple didn’t get into search. Wired Jan. 30, 2010.

“What about 2011? Is it going to be the year of the copycats?”
— In March 2011, Jobs’ last public appearance, showing off the iPad 2, Jobs swiped at the rest of the computer industry’s attempts to create a tablet in the model of the iPad. The New York Times March 2, 2011.

On Apple’s iPhone Success

“Well, let me say something about Apple. We didn’t want to get into any business where we didn’t own or control the primary tech, because if you don’t the people who do own it will beat you. Our big insight about 8 years ago was that it was going to shift from big displays or optical pickup heads, or radios being the most important component, we thought it was going to be software. And we’re pretty good at making software, we showed that in the iPod… other people are good at it too, like Palm, but we brought great software to the smartphone space.”
— In July 2010, at a press conference called to discuss AntennaGate.

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Find: William A. Turnier, designer of the Oreo cookie

2011-08-27T14:43:00.001-04:00

Sent to you via Google Reader

The story of William A. Turnier, the man who designed the Oreo cookie

W.A. Turnier worked for Nabisco from 1923 to 1973, moving up in the ranks from mail boy to a member of the engineering department. His son Bill, who resides in Chapel Hill and teaches tax law at UNC, shared with us the story and the 1952 blueprint.
by Emily Wallace
Twelve billion times a year, a disc of vanilla cream is stamped between two chocolate wafers to produce the Oreo, the world's most popular manufactured cookie. An American staple since 1912, the Oreo has a flavor that contrasts sweet cream and crisp chocolate cookies.…

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Meet: real time soft shadows using area light sources

2011-08-26T15:34:00.001-04:00

Hey folks,

Because so many of us are in the required 600 course right before our lab meeting, we are pushing back our lab meeting time to 330p Fridays.

We will meet today. Please make sure to come if you can to our meetings, even if I'm not able to post something about the meeting beforehand.

Today we'll talk about an nvidia white paper I ran across from March 2011, which represents a significant advance in soft shadowing:

Louis Bavoil. 2011. Multi-View Soft Shadows. NVIDIA white paper. Louis also has his own web page.

We will probably also spot and skim a bit as well.

Best,

Ben

Event: Brooks, Wattenberg & Viegas will keynote SIGCSE in Raleigh in 2012

2011-08-25T16:48:00.001-04:00

Fred Brooks is huge figure in graphics and computing in general. Wattenberg and Viegas lead the new "Big Picture" visualization group at Google, and are well known for visualizations such as the baby NameVoyager and Map of the Market.

You may wish to volunteer to be able to see them on the cheap.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sarah Heckman <sarah_heckman@ncsu.edu>

Colleagues,

The Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) will be holding their main conference in Raleigh, NC at the new convention center from February 12 to March 2, 2012 (the week before our spring break). As Local Arrangements Chair, I would like to encourage you to submit a paper or attend SIGCSE in 2012!

Around 1200 people annually attend SIGCSE, and the conference is a great chance to attend talks, panels, special sessions, workshops, posters, and birds of a feather sessions that are both inspiring and engaging. Topics range from computing in introductory courses to computing in advanced undergraduate courses. There are also sessions on computing in K-12.

The deadline for submission of papers, panels, special sessions, and three-hour workshops is September 2, 2011. The deadline for posters is October 24, 2011. If you're working on something innovative in education, please consider submitting your work!

I would like for students to get involved, especially PhD students that are interested in an academic track. Last year's SIGCSE was lacking in student volunteers. I would like to see NC State well represented in student volunteers. The students’ registration fee is reimbursed by volunteering before and during the conference. The student's registration fee hasn't been announced yet, but it will likely be around $60.

SIGCSE is also a host conference for the ACM Student Research Competition (http://src.acm.org/). There are separate competitions for undergraduate and graduate students. Recent PhD graduate Andy Meneely won 1st place in the SRC at SIGCSE in 2010. This would be an excellent opportunity for your students to showcase their research in poster form. The students with the best submissions also give a short research talk. The competition winners go on to compete with winners from other conferences that host the ACM Student Research Competition. The deadline for submitting is September 25, 2011. Please note that only three research projects are accepted from a single department.

Two of the three keynote speakers have been announced. The first is Fred Brooks. The Saturday keynotes are the team of Fernanda Véegas and Martin Wattenberg from Google's "Big Picture" visualization research group.

The conference website is at: http://www.sigcse.org/sigcse2012/.

I hope you will consider submitting and/or attending SIGCSE 2012, especially since it's in our own backyard.

Sarah

Find: Pro gamers playing "Gears of War 3" this weekend

2011-08-24T00:18:00.001-04:00

Epic developers vs the pros in gow 3.

Pro gamers playing "Gears of War 3" this weekend

Spectators at this weekend's match-up of professional video gamers at the Raleigh Convention Center will get to see "Gears of War 3," the much-anticipated new game from Cary's Epic Games, in action.

Two teams of pro players will take on four members of Epic's development group Friday at 8:15 p.m. at the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit competition. It's a return engagement for MLG's Pro Circuit, which also staged a competition in Raleigh last year.

More than 1,000 pros are expected to compete for more than $120,000 in prizes playing games such as "Call of Duty: Black Ops" and "Halo: Reach" this weekend. The action on three stages will be shown on giant video screens with live commentary.

A Pro Circuit event in Anaheim, Calif., attracted more than 20,000 spectators this weekend.

Spectator passes good for the entire weekend at the Raleigh Convention Center are available for $25 here. The event also will be streamed online.

"Gears of War 3" is set to launch Sept. 20. The first two installments of the franchise have sold more than 13 million copies.

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Find: next nvidia gpus arriving early next year

2011-08-14T23:05:00.001-04:00

Update: Kepler GPUs Shipping This Year? NVIDIA Says No

Although we're barely into August, both AMD and NVIDIA are already making their first moves for their next generation products due at the end of this year and into next year. AMD has recently told investors that it intends to release products using 28nm GPUs this year, and now NVIDIA is telling developers something similar

At their GTC Workshop Japan event, NVIDIA's Senior VP of Research Chris Malachowsky let developers know that the company is expecting that Kepler "should start shipping by the end of the year." Kepler will be the basis of NVIDIA's next generation of GPUs, and like AMD's forthcoming products is expected to be fabricated on TSMC's 28nm process. Though the focus at an event like GTC is primarily on workstation (Quadro) and server (Tesla) products, historically NVIDIA has shipped consumer (GeForce) products first, so it's likely that we're looking at the first shipping date for NVIDIA's newest GeForce parts.

Of course it goes without saying that shipping a GPU is not the same as a video card being available for sale - NVIDIA has made their sale once they ship a GPU to a partner. So NVIDIA shipping Kepler GPUs this year does not necessarily mean that the resulting video cards will also be available this year.

As for performance, it shouldn't come as any surprise that NVIDIA is offering few details - never mind the fact that GTC isn't the venue for gaming performance. For GTC NVIDIA is talking about double precision performance, which looks like it will become a major race between AMD and NVIDIA for this upcoming generation. For Kepler NVIDIA is expecting "about 3x improvement in [double precision] performance per watt," which would be a combination of the die shrink and architectural changes

Update: NVIDIA sent Xbit a clarification that puts the brakes on things.

"Although we will have early silicon this year, Kepler-based products are actually scheduled to go into production in 2012. We wanted to clarify this so people wouldn’t expect product to be available this year,"

So technically Kepler GPUs would still ship to partners this year, but "early silicon" normally signifies GPUs that aren't quite production worthy yet. In any case finished video cards definitely won't be out this year given NVIDIA's latest statement.

Source: Xbit Labs

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Find: The patent system isn’t broken — we are

2011-08-14T21:36:00.001-04:00

Interesting article, including the google patent.

The patent system isn’t broken — we are

There is a fundamental problem with patents in the United States. It is us. By that I mean all of us: the companies and people who directly interact with the [...]

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Visualizations: New York Times Opens Up Its Software Lab

2011-08-10T21:18:00.001-04:00

A new central site on Ny times visualizations, tools, data etc.

New York Times Opens Up Its Software Lab

Screenshot of Longitude, beta620's interactive news map

All modern media companies are really software companies. It’s simple necessity. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Facebook or The Washington Post; the production and display of so much information in so many different media requires serious digital chops. Even if you’re leveraging tools developed elsewhere, someone has to put it all together. You can be good or bad at this, but you can’t avoid it.

The New York Times is no exception; although people at the top sometimes feign analog crankiness, some of the best developers in the world work at 620 8th Avenue. Now they have their own digital shingle: beta620 serves — as the NYT’s Joe Fiore writes — as “a new home for experimental projects from Times developers — and a place for anyone to suggest and collaborate on new ideas and products.”

For years, the NYT’s systems and technology team has had a blog, Open, where they’ve shared data and coding projects with the public. But Open primarily targeted other developers, particularly those using the NYT’s data APIs to build their own tools. Beta620 is aimed at nytimes.com’s broader readership. It’s a chance to test how new prototypes work, generate community input, figure out how they can best add value to the company, and build and iterate on the fly.

Still, because it’s sandboxed from the main site, or perhaps because its core user base skews towards geeky early adopters like you and me, beta620 is refreshingly frank about what it’s setting out to do. Here’s Bobby Roe, one of the developer of the new HTML5 Crosswords app, spelling out what’s wrong with other digital versions of the NYT’s beloved crossword puzzle:

There’s an old, outdated Java applet with circa 1998 layout & design (720 x 515 pixels), and no opportunity for advertising. Alternately, users can download a binary puzzle file to play inside of a required downloaded Desktop executable, Litsoft’s Across Lite. The software was last updated in 2004.

Snap! But note that Roe also specifies the bottom line: advertising. The paper ...

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