If you read the New York Times, then this is a must see:
"Times Reader runs on Microsoft’s new Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which is built into the new Vista operating system and is included in the .Net 3.0 Framework service pack for Windows XP. If you are using Windows XP, the installer application will first install Net 3.0 Framework, a process that takes about ten minutes, and then install Times Reader, a process that takes about two minutes."
I like it. Check it out:
http://firstlook.nytimes.com/?category_name=times%20reader
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Speech Pen: Predictive Handwriting based on Ambient Multimodal Recognition
Writing by hand can be such a pain. Here's a solution to this problem within the context of university lectures.
From the abstract:
"...we designed a multimodal input system, called speech-pen, that assists digital writing during lectures or presentations with background speech and handwriting recognition. The system recognizes speech and handwriting in the background and provides the instructor with predictions for further writing. The speech-pen system also allows the sharing of context information for predictions among the instructor and the audience; the result of the instructor’s speech recognition is sent to the audience to support their own note-taking. Our preliminary study shows the effectiveness of this system and the implications for further improvements."
http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/papers/kurihara_chi2006_speechpen.pdf
From the abstract:
"...we designed a multimodal input system, called speech-pen, that assists digital writing during lectures or presentations with background speech and handwriting recognition. The system recognizes speech and handwriting in the background and provides the instructor with predictions for further writing. The speech-pen system also allows the sharing of context information for predictions among the instructor and the audience; the result of the instructor’s speech recognition is sent to the audience to support their own note-taking. Our preliminary study shows the effectiveness of this system and the implications for further improvements."
http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/papers/kurihara_chi2006_speechpen.pdf
Exploring photo collections in 3d
In case you missed it, here's a Java applet for playing around with this idea. Unlike the photosynth demo from Microsoft, this one works with firefox.
Yes, I'm fascinated by this idea. It could very well result in the most imaginative product to ever come out of Microsoft. It rivals the ESP Game in cleverness.
But can we take this idea further? For example, what can we do with video? Maybe we could put together many people's videos to produce a dynamic 3d world? One could imagine allowing people to watch and explore events in 3d such as concerts and sports games.
Another idea is to identify dense areas in 3d where people tend to take a lot of photographs. One could then use these dense areas to guide people to interesting places. For example, when visiting a museum, one might look at the dense areas first.
If you have other ideas, I would like to hear them. Comments were rare in CleverCS. I hope more people will provide feedback in this blog.
Yes, I'm fascinated by this idea. It could very well result in the most imaginative product to ever come out of Microsoft. It rivals the ESP Game in cleverness.
But can we take this idea further? For example, what can we do with video? Maybe we could put together many people's videos to produce a dynamic 3d world? One could imagine allowing people to watch and explore events in 3d such as concerts and sports games.
Another idea is to identify dense areas in 3d where people tend to take a lot of photographs. One could then use these dense areas to guide people to interesting places. For example, when visiting a museum, one might look at the dense areas first.
If you have other ideas, I would like to hear them. Comments were rare in CleverCS. I hope more people will provide feedback in this blog.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Welcome to Computer Science and Beyond
Computer Science and Beyond is the successor to CleverCS. This blog will be about not just computer science but also the art of computing (e.g., novel startups) as well as clever ideas from such diverse areas as space exploration and biology.
As for my views on the art and science of computing, see:
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