New Immigration Bill Amendment Could Help Keep Foreign
Tech Workers in U.S.
InformationWeek (05/31/07) McGee, Marianne Kolbasuk
In a bi-partisan effort, a group of U.S. senators is expected to introduce
an amendment to the immigration reform bill that establishes a dual
green-card system that would allow a pool of 140,000 employer-sponsored
green card foreign workers to remain in the United States. The amendment
also calls for eliminating any limit on H-1B visas for foreign
professionals with masters or doctoral degrees in science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) fields. By retaining a certain number of
employer-based green card workers each year, businesses would have better
control over the talent kept in the United States, according to tech
employers. Technology companies argue that the merit-based system, which
awards points based on several factors, including a person's education and
skills, gives government bureaucrats too much control over the type of
talent available to employers. The amendment would allow employers to
retain talented workers and expand permanent residency to foreigners with
advanced STEM degrees. The amendment would also eliminate limits on H-1B
visas granted to foreign students that have earned advanced degrees from
U.S. universities. However, the amendment, as well as the entire
immigration bill, faces strong opposition.
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RAW Talent Tackles Risk Analysis
Information Sciences Institute (05/29/07)
An Information Sciences Institute (ISI) research team, working with the
support of the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Risk and
Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), is developing a system that
will make the process of quantifying risk estimates faster and more
consistent. The analytical tool, called the Risk Analysis Workbench (RAW),
will eventually be used by all eight Department of Homeland Security
research centers, including CREATE. RAW uses artificial intelligence,
information sharing, and Web resources to gather and distribute specific
data necessary to perform tree analyses of "what-if" risk scenarios in a
quick and uniform process. A major element of RAW is ISI's innovations in
the systematic structuring of database information and making such
information more accessible over the Internet. RAW will be used to create
"decision trees" to provide risk analysis when comparing the cost of
prevention against the cost of response, for example, to natural disasters,
food born disease, or terrorist attacks. CREATE director Detlev von
Winterfeldt, a professor in USC's Viterbi engineering school, performed one
such risk assessment during CREATE's first few years, comparing the cost of
equipping all airplanes with counter measures for man-portable
anti-aircraft rockets against the repercussions of a successful attack.
The analysis was praised as a significant achievement, but the intense
effort required to perform such an analysis highlighted the need for a
faster, more uniform process. RAW will provide an integrated, generalized
toolbox designed to be used by risk analysts throughout the United States,
providing a standardized but flexible format. RAW is still in development,
but will be distributed in July for research testing.
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EDA's Future Lies Beyond Electronics
EE Times (05/28/07) Levitan, Steven
Professor of computer engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and
chairman of this year's Design Automation Conference Steven Levitan writes
that the field of electronic design automation is concerned with solving
the key engineering problems of today. Levitan says the industry has
played a critical role in the development of computing and communication
systems that have improved the world over the last half century. These
powerful and pervasive systems are used on a daily basis to solve important
problems. Levitan says this year's DAC will help show how EDA's influence
is not limited to the traditional chip environment. The event has an
automotive theme, and there are specials sessions on "wild and crazy
ideas," nanoscale circuits and architectures, synthetic biology, and design
and manufacturing for emerging technologies. Professor Jan M. Rabaey will
deliver his keynote, "Design Without Borders," on June 5. The author
believes the techniques of abstraction, extraction, optimization, and
synthesis are useful beyond electronic system design, and that over the
next decade the tools will be applied to other fields to solve problems
involving vehicular traffic, drug design, biology, and health care. For
more information about DAC, visit
http://www.dac.com/44th/index.html
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Moving Web-Based Software Offline
New York Times (05/31/07) P. C3; Helft, Miguel
Google announced that it has released a set of tools, called Google Gears,
that will allow any software programmer to enhance Google's Web
applications for offline use so they suit the programmer's requirements.
"The whole idea of extending browser capabilities to offline is something
that a lot of people are going to get pretty excited about," said Gartner
Research vice president David Mitchell Smith. Google has been one of the
most enthusiastic supporters of Web-based software and technology, and
Google executives say such practices will create faster innovation because
Web applications can be created quickly by merging existing components
created by other programmers. Google says that Gears is in its early
stages of development and will currently only work with Reader, a blog and
news source tracking service, but the company plans to use Gears to make
other programs available offline including Gmail, Calendar, and most
notably Docs and Spreadsheets. While the offline availability of these
programs will make them more competitive with Microsoft's Office, many
analysts say that online programs, unlike Microsoft's competing software,
lack the support and versatility that most businesses need.
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Taking It to the Streets: UCLA Scientists Seek to Turn
Cars Into a Mobile Communications Network
UCLA News (05/26/07) Abraham, Melissa
The automotive industry has already utilized computing technology to make
cars more efficient, safer, and easier to drive, but UCLA computer science
professor Mario Gerla and researcher Giovanni Pau want to expand the
computing capacity of cars by using them as computer nodes in a mobile
network. "We have all of these computer devices as integrated systems
inside our cars," Gerla says. "It's time to extend that concept.
Computers are already being installed in many vehicles, and wireless
capability will soon follow, so a mobile network deployment would only
require the relatively low-cost addition of sensors to the vehicle's roof
and bumpers and configuring the computer with new 'mobile' applications."
A team led by Gerla at UCLA Engineering's Network Research Lab aims to
reinvent cars and networks based on the principles of a wireless, mobile
ad-hoc networking platform known as MANET. The platform would allow moving
vehicles within a range of 100 meters to 300 meters of each other to
connect and create a network of cars. Pau says the system uses radio
protocols such as Digital Short Range Communication combined with wireless
LAN technology to create the network, which can be used to gather and
distribute safety information and complex multimedia data such as video.
"The most essential aspect of this network is that it is not subject to
memory, processing, storage and energy limitations like traditional sensor
networks. It relies on the resources of the vehicle itself, along with
those vehicles around it," Pau says. Aside from monitoring traffic
information, a mobile vehicle network could provide essential communication
infrastructure during emergencies, such as when communication
infrastructures were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina and the attacks on
Sept. 11, 2001. Although such a network raises privacy concerns, Gerla
says that "consumer demand will ultimately drive rapid adoption past the
point of concern over privacy."
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FEST Winner's Research May Revolutionize Computer
Design
UVA Today (University of Virginia) (05/31/07) Maki, Melissa
University of Virginia assistant professor of computer science Kim
Hazelwood's work on computer design earned her a $50,000 award from the
Fund for Excellence in Science and Technology (FEST) Distinguished Young
Inventor Grant program. Hazelwood says the traditional approach to
optimizing computer systems by changing the hardware is limited as it only
focuses on a single layer of computer design and ignores the interface
between software and hardware, which has traditionally been fixed. Her
system, called Tortola, creates a middle layer between hardware and
software that translates and communicates between the two, creating the
possibility of cooperative problem solving. "This middle layer would
allow software to adapt to the hardware it's running on, something
engineers have not been able to do in the past," Hazelwood says. An
example of where a system such as Tortola would be beneficial, according to
Hazelwood, was the famous Intel mishap where the company had to recall a
massive number of microprocessors that were distributed before a flaw in
their fine mathematics function was detected. Tortola could prevent such
expensive mishaps by compensating for the flaws in the hardware, giving
designers the ability to release products sooner because any problems could
be fixed later. "Even so early in her career, Kim has done creative,
extensive and groundbreaking work in developing techniques to integrate
hardware and software," says Mary Lou Soffa, Chair of the Department of
Computer Science and Hazelwood's mentor on the project.
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Northeastern University Researchers Solve Rubik's Cube in
26 Moves
Northeastern University News (06/01/07)
Northeastern University computer science professor Gene Cooperman and
graduate student Dan Kunkle have proven that any configuration of a Rubik's
cube can be solved in 26 moves. The research from Cooperman and Kunkle
improves upon the previous record by one move. The use of 7 TB of
distributed disk as an extension to RAM for holding large tables and the
development of faster computer moves using mathematical group theory were
keys to their research efforts. Once all of the configurations of a
Rubik's cube were placed in a family of sets of configurations, the
researchers focused on applying a single move to the family of cosets at
once. They used the new mathematical group theory technique to simulate
the result on a computer at a rate of 100,000,000 times per second.
Computers at Teragrid and Northeastern were used. "Search and enumeration
is a large research area encompassing many researchers working in different
disciplines--from artificial intelligence to operations," says Cooperman.
"The Rubik's cube allows researchers from different disciplines to compare
their methods on a single, well-known problem."
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Spammers' Use of AI Only Just Begun
InfoWorld (06/01/07) Hines, Matt
Image-based spam attacks have emerged as a new front in the battle against
spam, but spammers' use of artificial intelligence in such attacks is only
the beginning, concludes a new Forrester Research report. Forrester
analysts believe that the use of AI in spamming attacks will only grow more
sophisticated and argue that the only way to prevent more attacks is to
abandon the current tactic of trying to filter out every type of spam that
mass-mailers develop and instead stop spam at its source. Forrester
analyst Chenxi Wang says spammers are applying the same principles used in
CAPTCHA, the challenge-response test found on may online applications that
ask users to input characters found in an misshapen and discolored images,
to bypass anti-spam programs. "People have devised new filters that use
technologies such as optical character recognition that has curtailed the
spread of image spam," Wang says. "Unfortunately, image spam is only one
type of AI problem, and spammers have many they will use in the future;
this is only the beginning of an arms race." Wang warns that without a
major advancement in AI research, there is no possibility of bridging the
gap between the number of methods spammers can deploy and anti-spam
defenses. One of the methods that spammers are already beginning to
utilize involves sending distorted and obfuscated text images, graphic
pictures, and audio and video files, all of which can bypass existing
image-filtering tools. Wang says that instead of trying to counter each
type of spam, customers and technology providers need to focus on catching
messages and fundamental properties contained in each variation, such as
links to malware sites that are contained in most of spam messages.
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HP Opens College Lab in China for Media Search
CNet (05/31/07) Kanellos, Michael
Researchers at China's Tsinghua University have developed an application
that allows security cameras to identify individuals and is being used to
expedite border crossings between Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Hewlett-Packard
wants to bring the application to consumer PCs to improve searches for
video files and is opening a lab at Tsinghua University to assist in the
research. The facility, HP's first complete lab at a university, will
initially work on developing pattern matching and search technologies for
audio tracks, videos, or photos. One search application developed at
Tsinghua lets users find songs by humming a few notes of the tune while
another application finds songs using their rhythm characteristics, genre,
or vocal track, rather than the tags associated with the music file.
Tsinghua has also developed a photo-matching application that finds
different photographs of the same person by matching contours in the
person's face. While these programs are still experimental, they work
fairly well, according to HP's chief technology officer of imaging and
printing systems Patrick Scaglia. "We've searched the world, and it's the
best one we've seen," Scaglia says. "It is not ready to ship, but it gives
us confidence that the problem can be cracked." HP is also working with
the university on a computing grid that connects 20 of the grids at major
universities to a larger computing unit.
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Better Face Recognition Software
Technology Review (05/30/07) Williams, Mark
The results of the Face Recognition Grand Challenge showed that machine
recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002 and a
hundredfold since 1995, and today the best face-recognition algorithms are
even more accurate than most humans. National Institute of Science and
Technology program manager for tests Jonathon Phillips says the improvement
in accuracy is due to the development of high-resolution still images, 3D
face-recognition algorithms, and the recent availability of 3D sensors,
which directly capture information about the shapes of faces. Current
recognition software also focuses more on distinctive features of a human
face's surface, such as the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin,
where tissue and bone are most apparent and do not change over time.
Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute research Ralph Gross says 3D facial
recognition can also recognize subjects from different viewing angles, up
to 90 degrees, which was a problem before, possibly because most facial
recognition technology was used for tasks involving ID cards and face
scanners, which use full frontal faces of cooperative subjects under
controlled lighting. High-resolution still images have also improved
face-recognition technology with detailed skin-texture analysis. Any patch
of skin, called a skin print, can be captured as a image, broken into small
blocks that algorithms can then measure, recording lines, pores, and actual
skin texture. Gross says skin-texture analysis is capable of identifying
differences between identical twins, which is impossible using
facial-recognition software alone.
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At Some Schools, Facebook Evolves From Time Waster to
Academic Study
Wall Street Journal (05/29/07) Lavallee, Andrew
Following a general obsession in students with social networking sites
such as Facebook, schools are creating courses of study that focus on
social networking, online communities, and user-contributed content, like
the new graduate program in social computing at the University of Michigan.
"There's a strong interest coming from computer scientists and from
industry, based on the recognition that, increasingly, computing is indeed
social," says Cornell University sociology professor Michael Macy. Cameron
Marlow, a Yahoo researcher who received a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology for his dissertation on how information spreads
through blogs, says that since joining Yahoo in September 2005, there is a
greater focus on hiring people with training in social computing. The
Rochester Institute of Technology received a grant in April to develop a
course in social media, and when the 90 students taking the class in the
spring of 2008 study such social media as blogs and wikis, they will be
studied by other communications researchers to see the effect social sites
like Second Life have on work quality. Even schools that are not
traditionally known for their technology programs have taken an interest in
studying social computing. For the past year, Abilene Christian University
in Abilene, Texas, conducted two research projects that used Facebook to
examine student retention trends, partially because the school noticed how
much time its students were spending on the site, according to K.B.
Massingill, executive director of the division that funded the research.
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New Agency IARPA Develops Spy Tools
Associated Press (05/31/07) Shrader, Katherine
A new U.S. government agency called the Intelligence Advanced Research
Project Activity (IARPA) has been established to develop ground-breaking
technology for the U.S.'s 16 spy agencies. One technology under
development is a "cloaking" technology that bends radar around an object,
essentially making it undetectable. Others include smaller power sources
using nanotechnology and faster code-breaking quantum computers, according
to IARPA acting director Steve Nixon. IARPA has met with resistance,
however, as members of Congress question the need for such a program.
IARPA will be modeled after, though significantly smaller than, the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was created after the Russians
launched Sputnik in 1957. Government agencies have had several technology
development success stories in the past. The CIA developed lithium-iodine
batteries, which are now used in pacemakers, as well as microdot cameras
capable of creating images small enough to be hidden in the period at the
end of a sentence. Nixon says that IARPA will not have labs and electron
microscopes, but will sponsor research at universities, national labs, and
other organizations. Nixon notes that IARPA will not be limited to hard
sciences, but will also work on social-science problems such as finding
tools for language research or analyzing the habits of other societies, as
well as privacy protection.
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Software Learns When It Pays to Deceive
New Scientist (05/30/07) Merali, Zeeya
Computer scientists at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa
have developed a software agent that is able to bluff. Although some
online poker players believe online poker sites use poker-playing bots to
beat them, Witwatersrand's Evan Hurwitz suggests current computer agents
would not be able to bluff convincingly because they are not programmed to
deal with unexpected and illogical actions. Hurwitz teamed up with
Tshilidzi Marwala to develop Aiden, an artificial intelligence bot based on
a neural network algorithm for forecasting stock market movements.
Initially, the researchers did not program Aiden with the rules for the
card game lerpa, and the virtual player refused to play after it lost, so
Hurwitz and Marwala forced Aiden to play the first 200 hands. Although
Aiden was able to pick up the rules, the actions of opponents, and learn
from its wins and losses, the virtual player still would not bluff until it
was pitted against similarly trained bots. The computer agents began to
develop playing styles on their own, and the aggressive bot Randy began to
bluff after receiving bad hands and having to fold, while the cautious
Aiden would sometimes fold even if it had a relatively strong hand. "This
demonstrates that computers can learn this peculiarly human behavior," says
Philippe de Wilde, a computer scientist at Heriot-Watt University in
Edinburgh. "They generate the strategy from play, which is a very human
way of learning."
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Robots Advance, Consumers Stall
Christian Science Monitor (05/31/07) P. 13; Peter, Tom A.
Industry observers say the average American household will include one or
two simple robots within the next 10 years, but first Americans will need
to overcome their preconceived prejudices against robots, which include
skepticism, unrealistic expectations, and the fear that robots are
dangerous. Americans have little problem with their unknown interactions
with less obvious robots and robotic elements incorporated into larger
products, such as cruise control, but the idea of autonomous robots in the
house is still viewed cautiously by the American consumer. For example,
for the same cost as a regular vacuum, a consumer can purchase the Roomba
robot, which automatically vacuums and even knows when to charge itself,
but after four years on the market only 1 percent to 2 percent of American
households felt compelled or comfortable enough to use a robot for a task
as menial as vacuuming. The problem in many cases is that people question
if the Roomba really works or is just an elaborate gimmick. Another
problem is that Americans have an underlying cultural fear of robots due to
movies involving robots that overthrow humans or hunt them down. As with
many technological changes, a generational shift may be needed to bring
mainstream acceptance of robots into American culture. Children are
frequently the first to test new robotic innovations. Aside for
acclimating the next generation to the presence of robots, robotic toys can
also provide a realistic expectation of what robots can do. Sarjoun Skaff,
cofounder of robotic toy company Bossa Nova Concepts, says that unrealistic
expectation create distrust for machines like Roomba. "So far, our
perception has been shaped by science-fiction movies," Skaff says. "And
the public's expectation of what the robots can and should do far exceeds
the technical ability of today's robots." Even when robotics manage to
overcome the public's general distrust, robots will still need to be made
simple enough so that even the least technologically inclined consumers can
use robot products with ease.
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Xerox Develops New Way to Print Invisible Ink
Extreme Tech (05/30/07) Gardiner, Bryan
Xerox announced that its scientists have perfected a new way to print
hidden fluorescent content on standard printing equipment. Xerox says the
new technique will allow companies to add an additional layer of security
to sensitive material such as checks, tickets, coupons, and high-value
documents. Xerox Innovation Group research fellow and co-inventor of the
patented process Reiner Eschbach says the hidden fluorescent print will
only show up under ultraviolet light and does not require the use of
special fluorescent inks. "That means a four-color digital printer can
print everything it normally would, and it can simultaneously individualize
a document with a fluorescent identifier," Eschbach says. The fluorescent
technology is part of a larger research project Xerox is conducting to
build security into documents based on a digital printer's ability to make
any element on the page, such as lines, text, and images, unique to the
recipient. Eschbach and a research team realized that most paper
manufacturers already inject fluorescent brightening agents to enhance the
"whiteness" in the paper. The team then focused on creating certain toner
combinations that would allow the paper's fluorescent elements to shine
through under ultraviolet light. The result is a font that uses inherent
contrast to basically "write" hidden fluorescent content. Xerox expects
that eventually this technology will be used to make personal checks with a
printed fluorescent signature that the merchant or bank teller can compare
to the actual signature.
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Nose Can Play Music on New Instrument
Discovery News (05/29/07) Staedter, Tracy
A recent graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York State is
behind an adaptive-use musical instrument that is designed to serve as a
musical therapy tool for people with physical disabilities, such as
cerebral palsy. Zane Van Dusen, a graduate of computer science and
electronic media arts and communications, teamed up with Pauline Oliveros,
a musician and arts professor at Rensselaer, to develop the interface,
which relies on an affordable webcam and specialized computer software.
The user, sitting in front of a computer, sees live video of their face
through a webcam, and uses motion-tracking software to choose a point to
track, such as the tip of their nose. Movements are tracked across an
onscreen keyboard, with low notes to the left and high notes to the right,
and sounds are also determined by the rectangle that appears on the screen
around the face of the user. The percussive mode allows the user to
produce a snare drum or cymbal sound by moving outside the rectangle. The
tool helps children focus more on their movements, according to a pilot
study at Rehabs Programs in Poughkeepsie. "The added benefit of all this
is that the children are working on their head control," says Leaf Miller,
a professional musician and an occupational therapist at Rehab Programs.
"It can also be adapted for speech language pathologists to use for
communication."
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Internet Governance Forum in November to Address Access,
Security Issues, UN Official Says
eGov Monitor (05/24/07)
The second U.N. Internet Governance Forum, to be held in Rio de Janeiro
Nov. 12-15, will concentrate on issues such as access, security, and
openness, according to U.N. officials who attended a May 23 meeting about
potential topics for the forum. Around 200 Internet stakeholders
participated in the May 23 meeting, and some participants opined that the
November forum should focus more on internationalized domain names and
other Internet resources, said Markus Kummer, executive coordinator of the
forum's secretariat. Participants also felt that the November forum should
go beyond the scope of the first forum in Athens. Nitin Desai, the
secretary-general's special adviser on Internet governance, said the shape
of the forum could evolve in years to come, explaining that "we are
experimenting with a multi-stakeholder open-ended process without a fixed
membership." Desai announced that India and Egypt would host the 2008 and
2009 forums, respectively.
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Read ID, Real Debate
Washington Technology (05/28/07) Vol. 22, No. 9, P. 24; Lipowicz, Alice
Security professionals, vendors, and trade groups continue to argue over
the feasibility and effectiveness of the 2005 Real ID Act, which would
standardize driver's licenses nationwide. Under the act, states would
gather and electronically house millions of individuals' personal
information, and the states' databases would link together. The concept
was developed by the 9/11 Commission to close gaps in the current system,
but critics contend that the act's mandates would put people at risk for
identity theft, racial profiling, and other threats to civil liberties.
Eugene Spafford, ACM's U.S. policy committee chairman, asserted that Real
ID sets up the possibility of identity theft "on an unprecedented scale,"
and voiced concerns that states will establish insufficient privacy
protections as they hurry to meet Real ID deadlines. Spafford cited audit
trails, strong data access controls, and employee background checks as
types of protections that should be employed, as well as a paper trail for
the system. The DHS Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee declined
to sanction the program, as panelists felt that concerns about privacy,
data security, and cost, among others, had yet to be resolved. Still, the
committee noted that the American Association of Motor Vehicle
Administrators' (AAMVA) database system could be a potential prototype for
Real ID. ACM also characterized AAMVA's system as "effective," and said
that its system design could create a national database, if expanded in
scope. For more information on ACM's Real-ID activities, visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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Melding Mind and Machine
ANU Reporter (05/07)
Australian National University Ph.D. student James Sheridan dreams of
making a device that can sense its user's mood and make suggestions to help
the person feel better. "It's an idea I've had for a little virtual brain
in a personal assistant that you carry around with you," said Sheridan.
"Maybe there are sensors melded into your hat, or parts of your cloths,
that are able to monitor your brainwaves or heart rate. The device will
know that you're quite stressed. It will know from your schedule that
you've got an hour free. The device may have a GPS, so it will know where
you are and what's around you. You still have control, but the computer's
suggestions are going to be much more contextualized to your life."
Sheridan's desire to create a more user-sensitive device came from his need
to create a research project that would fit his needs, particularly his
struggle with Attention Deficit Disorder. Sheridan negotiated a doctorate
that split his study between the Computer Science and Information
Technology department and the Centre for New Media Arts at ANU, allowing
for part of his assessment to include elements of a performance and an
installation. While creating a form of art that could "tune" itself to
human thought, Sheridan started developing what he calls a "mental Zen
garden," which will allow the interaction of humans and machines through
sensory equipment and software. A user is placed in a virtual reality
laboratory that can track human vision and movements while creating 3D
graphics. Head gear containing electroencephalography sensors read
electrical activity in the user's brain, feeding information about thought
processes into an equation. The result is an evolving garden with animated
branches and environmental sounds based off of the users mental thoughts.
Sheridan's project has spurred several other graduate student projects that
are helping to create the software to track movements and thought
processes, and could someday result in emotionally responsive PDAs and
computers.
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