- Buzz: An Extensible Programming Language for Self-Organizing Heterogeneous Robot Swarms (arXiv) — Swarm-based primitives allow for the dynamic management of robot teams, and for sharing information globally across the swarm. Self-organization stems from the completely decentralized mechanisms upon which the Buzz run-time platform is based. The language can be extended to add new primitives (thus supporting heterogeneous robot swarms), and its run-time platform is designed to be laid on top of other frameworks, such as Robot Operating System.
- Jupiter Rising: A Decade of Clos Topologies and Centralized Control in Google’s Datacenter Network (PDF) — Our datacenter networks run at dozens of sites across the planet, scaling in capacity by 100x over 10 years to more than 1Pbps of bisection bandwidth. Wow, their Wi-Fi must be AMAZING!
- Nokia’s VR Ambitions Could Restore Its Tech Lustre (Bloomberg) — the VR ecosystem map is super-interesting.
- Visualising GoogleNet Classes — fascinating to see squirrel monkeys and basset hounds emerge from nothing. It’s so tempting to say, “this is what the machine sees in its mind when it thinks of basset hounds,” even though Boring Brain says, “that’s bollocks and you know it!”
"computer vision" entries
We make the software, you make the robots
An interview with Andreas Mueller, on scikit-learn and usable machine learning software.
Superpixels example from Andreas Mueller’s thesis paper (PDF), used with permission.
Mueller wears many hats at work. He is one of the key maintainers of the popular Python machine learning library scikit-learn. Holding a doctorate in computer vision from the University of Bonn in Germany, he currently works on open science at New York University’s Center for Data Science. He speaks at conferences around the world and has a fanbase of 5,000+ followers on Twitter and about as many reputation points on Stack Overflow. In other words, this man has got mad street cred. He started out doing pure math in academia, and has now achieved software developer cult idol status. Read more…
Four short links: 31 July 2015
Robot Swarms, Google Datacenters, VR Ecosystem, and DeepDream Visualised
Four short links: 27 July 2015
Google’s Borg, Georgia v. Malamud, SLAM-aware system, and SmartGPA
- Large-scale Cluster Management at Google with Borg — Google’s Borg system is a cluster manager that runs hundreds of thousands of jobs, from many thousands of different applications, across a number of clusters, each with up to tens of thousands of machines. […] We present a summary of the Borg system architecture and features, important design decisions, a quantitative analysis of some of its policy decisions, and a qualitative examination of lessons learned from a decade of operational experience with it.
- Georgia Sues Carl Malamud (TechDirt) — for copyright infringement… for publishing an official annotated copy of the state's laws. […] the state points directly to the annotated version as the official laws of the state.
- Monocular SLAM Supported Object Recognition (PDF) — a monocular SLAM-aware object recognition system that is able to achieve considerably stronger recognition performance, as compared to classical object recognition systems that function on a frame-by-frame basis. (via Improving Object Recognition for Robots)
- SmartGPA: How Smartphones Can Assess and Predict Academic Performance of College Students (PDF) — We show that there are a number of important behavioral factors automatically inferred from smartphones that significantly correlate with term and cumulative GPA, including time series analysis of activity, conversational interaction, mobility, class attendance, studying, and partying.
Four short links: 6 July 2015
DeepDream, In-Flight WiFi, Computer Vision in Preservation, and Testing Distributed Systems
- DeepDream — the software that’s been giving the Internet acid-free trips.
- In-Flight WiFi Business — numbers and context for why some airlines (JetBlue) have fast free in-flight wifi while others (Delta) have pricey slow in-flight wifi. Four years ago ViaSat-1 went into geostationary orbit, putting all other broadband satellites to shame with 140 Gbps of total capacity. This is the Ka-band satellite that JetBlue’s fleet connects to, and while the airline has to share that bandwidth with homes across of North America that subscribe to ViaSat’s Excede residential broadband service, it faces no shortage of capacity. That’s why JetBlue is able to deliver 10-15 Mbps speeds to its passengers.
- British Library Digitising Newspapers (The Guardian) — as well as photogrammetry methods used in the Great Parchment Book project, Terras and colleagues are exploring the potential of a host of techniques, including multispectral imaging (MSI). Inks, pencil marks, and paper all reflect, absorb, or emit particular wavelengths of light, ranging from the infrared end of the electromagnetic spectrum, through the visible region and into the UV. By taking photographs using different light sources and filters, it is possible to generate a suite of images. “We get back this stack of about 40 images of the [document] and then we can use image-processing to try to see what is in [some of them] and not others,” Terras explains.
- Testing a Distributed System (ACM) — This article discusses general strategies for testing distributed systems as well as specific strategies for testing distributed data storage systems.
Four short links: 1 July 2015
Recovering from Debacle, Open IRS Data, Time Series Requirements, and Error Messages
- Google Dev Apologies After Photos App Tags Black People as Gorillas (Ars Technica) — this is how you recover from a unequivocally horrendous mistake.
- IRS Finally Agrees to Release Non-Profit Records (BoingBoing) — Today, the IRS released a statement saying they’re going to do what we’ve been hoping for, saying they are going to release e-file data and this is a “priority for the IRS.” Only took $217,000 in billable lawyer hours (pro bono, thank goodness) to get there.
- Time Series Database Requirements — classic paper, laying out why time-series databases are so damn weird. Their access patterns are so unique because of the way data is over-gathered and pushed ASAP to the store. It’s mostly recent, mostly never useful, and mostly needed in order. (via Thoughts on Time-Series Databases)
- Compiler Errors for Humans — it’s so important, and generally underbaked in languages. A decade or more ago, I was appalled by Python’s errors after Perl’s very useful messages. Today, appreciating Go’s generally handy errors. How a system handles the operational failures that will inevitably occur is part and parcel of its UX.
Four short links: 10 June 2015
Product Sins, Container Satire, Dong Detection, and Evolving Code Designs
- The 11 Deadly Sins of Product Development (O’Reilly Radar) — they’re traps that are easy to fall into.
- It’s the Future — satire, but like all good satire it’s built on a rich vein of truth. Genuine guffaw funny, but Caution: Contains Rude Words.
- Difficulty of Dong Detection — accessible piece about how automated “inappropriate” detection remains elusive. (via Mind Hacks)
- Evolution of Code Design at Facebook — you may not have Facebook-scale scale problems, but if you’re having scale problems then Facebook’s evolution (not just their solutions) will interest you.
Four short links: 22 December 2014
Manufacturers and Consumers, Time Management, Ethical Decisions, and Faux Faces
- Manufacturers and Consumers (Matt Webb) — manufacturers never spoke to consumers before. They spoke with distributors and retailers. But now products are connected to the Internet, manufacturers suddenly have a relationship with the consumer. And they literally don’t know what to do.
- Calendar Hacks (Etsy) — inspiration for your New Year’s resolution to waste less time.
- Making an Ethical Decision — there actually is an [web] app for that.
- Masks That Look Human to Computers — an artist creates masks that look like faces to face-recognition algorithms, but not necessarily to us. cf Deep Neural Networks are Easily Fooled.
Four short links: 24 November 2014
Magic Leap, Constant Improvement, Philanthropofallacies, and Chinese Manufacturing
- How Magic Leap is Secretly Creating a New Alternate Reality (Gizmodo) — amazing piece of investigative tech journalism.
- Better All The Time (New Yorker) — What we’re seeing is, in part, the mainstreaming of excellent habits. […] Everyone works hard. Everyone is really good.
- Stop Trying to Save the World (New Republic) — What I want to talk shit on is the paradigm of the Big Idea—that once we identify the correct one, we can simply unfurl it on the entire developing world like a picnic blanket. (note: some pottymouth language in this article, and some analysis I wholeheartedly agree with.)
- Christmas in Yiwu — We travelled by container ship across the East China Sea before following the electronics supply chain around China, visiting factories, distributors, wholesalers and refineries. Fascinating! 22km of corridors in the mall that dollar store buyers visit to fill their shelves. I had never seen so many variations of the same product. Dozens of Christmas stockings bearing slightly different Santas and snowmen. Small tweaks on each theme. An in-house designer creates these designs. It feels like a brute force approach to design, creating every single possibility and then letting the market decide which it wants to buy. If none of the existing designs appeal to a buyer they can get their own designs manufactured instead. When a custom design is successful, with the customer placing a large order, it is copied by the factory and offered in their range to future buyers. The factory sales agent indicated that designs weren’t protected and could be copied freely, as long as trademarks were removed. Parallels with web design left as exercise to the reader. (via the ever-discerning Mr Webb)
Four short links: 13 January 2014
S3 Consistency, Paper Drone, Face Substitution, and Wearable Options
- s3mper (Github) — Netflix’s library to add consistency checking to S3. (via Netflix tech blog)
- Powerup Smartphone-Controlled Paper Airplane — boggle. You know the future is here when you realise you’re on the Internet of Trivial Things.
- clmtrackr (Github) — real-time face recognition, deformation, and substitution in Javascript. Boggle.
- Nine Wearables (Quartz) — a roundup of Glass-inspired wearables, including projecting onto contact lenses which wins today’s “most squicky idea” award.
Four short links: 1 November 2013
AI Lecture, Programming Provocation, Packet Laws, and Infrared Photography
- Analogy as the Core of Cognition (YouTube) — a Douglas Hofstadter lecture at Stanford.
- Why Isn’t Programming Futuristic? (Ian Bicking) — delicious provocations for the future of programming languages.
- Border Check — visualisation of where your packet go, and the laws they pass through to get there.
- Pi Noir — infrared Raspberry Pi camera board. (via DIY Drones)