Transcript Applied COIN Lab Anatole Gershman, Alan Black, Louis Van Ahn

Applied COIN Lab
Anatole Gershman, Alan Black, Louis Van Ahn
TA: Mehrbod Sharifi
August 26, 2008
Who are we?
Anatole Gershman
Alan W Black
Mehrbod Sharifi
Luis von Ahn
Why are we teaching this class?
This class is about inventing
Applications
People don’t use computers – they use applications
In your future jobs you’ll be building applications
What kinds of applications will we see in the future?
Future applications will:
Sense
the world through networks of sensors;
Think
by making sense out of massive amounts
of information; and help us
Act
in the real world
Example:
Your smart phone senses that you are at the airport; it checks
your schedule and concludes that you are there to take flight
123 to Chicago; it acts by displaying the departure gate
Is a smart phone a product or a service?
The distinction between physical products and services
will largely disappear:
most services will be provided through physical products
most physical products will become conduits for services
Applications will combine physical products and services
They have to be designed together
What will you be doing in this class?
You will be inventing and building applications that
combine physical products and services and can sense
think and act
You will work in small groups or individually
We will provide project ideas, tools and advice
We expect you to submit:
a project proposal
a project design and mock-up
a working demo
a project report
We expect to hear from you on a weekly basis
Class Schedule
8/28/08
9/4/08
9/11/08
9/18/08
9/25/08
10/2/08
10/9/08
10/16/08
10/23/08
10/30/08
11/6/08
11/13/08
11/20/08
11/27/08
12/4/08
12/11/08
First Class
Proposal + Groups (1-3)
Mockup (Specs and PPT)
Final Plan and starting work
Mid Point Milestone
No class - Thanksgiving
Project presentations
Project presentation + final report
Deliverables
1. Project proposal (1-2 pages) due next Thursday
What will the prototype do?
Why is this interesting and important?
What kinds of tools and equipment will be necessary?
Who will be the team members?
2. Mockup and preliminary specs of the system due 9/11
A sequence of Power Point slides depicting a demo scenario
Preliminary architecture and specs
Preliminary selection of tools and equipment
Preliminary assignment of roles and responsibilities
3. System specs and work plan due 9/18
Architecture and design decision justifications
Tools and equipment
Roles, responsibilities, schedule
Deliverables (cont.)
4. Weekly progress reports
One page summary of the last week accomplishments and
goals for the next week
5. Final working prototype
A 10min demonstration, explaining what it does, why it is
important and how it does it
6. Final report due 12/11
A 5 page paper describing:
Project goals
System design
Use scenario
Potential applications
Lessons learned
Project ideas: Smart Online Cabinet
How would the cabinet know what’s inside?
RFID tags and reader
How would it recognize the user?
camera, voice?
What other sensors should it have?
What services should it provide?
How do we communicate with it?
When and what should it say and when
should it remain silent?
Project ideas: Smart Mobile Assistant
Your smart phone or PDA knows
where you are and can record and
play back snippets of information
in the right context
For example, while meeting someone new, you might
record a snippet of the introduction when you say:
“Hi John, nice to meet you”
Later, you would be able to ask:
“Wednesday, noon, cafeteria”
Your assistant will play the snippets recorded at that
time in that location
Project ideas: Smart Objects
If this plant could talk, what should
it say?
What services might it provide?
What about the door to your house
or your office?
Project ideas: Interactive Picture
Remember pictures on the walls
of Hogwarts School of Magic?
We already have the software and the hardware to track
your position in front of the picture
What applications would be interesting and useful?
Project ideas: Tricorder
Or the remote control to the world
Scan the environment to see what’s
controllable
Provide standard control interfaces
Example:
Point the tricorder at an interesting car in
the street, click the “copy” button then
find the nearest big screen, get a search
engine and “paste” the car into it.
Project ideas: Speech Eliza
Joseph
Weizenbaum,
MIT 1966
20Q
A.L.I.C.E. and AIML
Chatterbot
Dr. Sbaitso
ELIZA effect
Jabberwacky
List of Chatterbots
Loebner prize
PARRY
Racter
Simulated consciousness
Turing test
Virtual Woman
Project ideas: Smarter Virtual Worlds
A school yard in Second Life
Robotic kids have internal states
and behaviors governed by rules
They can sense each other
location and behavior and engage
in conversations
Verbal combat between characters
Tools and equipment
RFID kits
Laptops
Bluetooth beacons
Webcams
Headsets and
speech kits
PDAs
Smart Phones
Sensor kits
Questions?
All course information will be on Scribble Wiki
Coin.scribblewiki.com
1. Project proposal (1-2 pages) due next Thursday
What will the prototype do?
Why is this interesting and important?
What kinds of tools and equipment will be necessary?
Who will be the team members?
2. Mockup and preliminary specs of the system due 9/11
A sequence of Power Point slides depicting a demo scenario
Preliminary architecture and specs
Preliminary selection of tools and equipment
Preliminary assignment of roles and responsibilities