Followup to April's meeting

Here's an article describing a project to catalog all the functional parts of the human genome.

DMZ

Based on a rave review by Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing, I bought the first volume of the graphic novel DMZ and enjoyed it so much that I plan to purchase the entire series. DMZ comes from the amazing DC Vertigo imprint, which brought us the incomparable Sandman series and most of Transmetropolitan. Like our current fiction reading, DMZ takes place in a not-too-distant future dystopia -- a civil-war-ravaged Manhattan that has been abandoned by all but a half-million residents. Like Transmetropolitan, DMZ features a hard-bitten gonzo journalist who meets all sorts of interesting characters in his attempt to survive and get at the truth in a hostile, conspiracy-filled nightmare world. Perhaps we would like to read some of DMZ for our next IS meeting.

Visual object tracking with a $300 drone

Haskins may be good at tracking eyes, but we're following balls (green ones, to be precise). Dramatic reduction in the cost of drone aircraft and digital video cameras, combined with the availability of powerful software platforms like OpenCV (the same technology that won the DARPA Grand Challenge race in 2005), are making this kind of research available to anyone with a few hundred dollars, a decent laptop, and the ability to program in a general-purpose language like Python.

Errol Morris: Borges, Kripke, Kuhn, ...

Wittgenstein whacks you with a poker, but Kuhn throws an ashtray.

Meanwhile Error Morris just keeps kicking ass.

Batter up!

Tobii eye tracker laptop prototype

Salon Science features an article called "New tracking technology knows when, where your eyes look" by Peter Svensson of the Associated Press that describes a laptop prototype by Tobii Technology Inc. Tobii eyetrackers are commonly used in academic research in areas such as psychology, vision, and marketing. For example, at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut, eyetracking is a frequently used methodology in cognitive science research related to reading, attention, and perception. The laptop prototype uses a combination of cameras and infrared light sources to help track gaze and determine where you are looking on the screen.

RoboEarth: A World Wide Web for Robots

Markus Waibel describes a European project called RoboEarth. This story appeared in IEEE Spectrum on Feb. 25, 2011. The RoboEarth website describes the project as "... a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment." The project is part of the Cognitive Systems and Robotics Initiative from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme. Waibel indicates that the project is "... building an Internet for robots: a worldwide, open-source platform that allows any robot with a network connection to generate, share, and reuse data" He continues, "... my colleagues and I believe that if robots are to move out of the factories and work alongside humans, they will need to systematically share data and build on each other's experience."

Extreme Audiophiles Take Microphones to Next Level

The anechoic chamber at the Josephson Engineering facility in Santa Cruz, California, is featured in a Feb. 8, 2011 article by Matthew Schechmeister in WIRED Raw File. If you are in the New Haven, Connecticut area, and want to see an anechoic chamber in person, make arrangements to visit Haskins Laboratories and perhaps they will be able to show you their facility. Thanks and a hat tip to RSC for drawing our attention to this story. (Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com)