Computer Science News

Computers have become an increasingly affordable and essential appliance for every household in the developed world and an increasing number of households in the developing world. As desktop computers have become more affordable so to have other computer driven devices. In recent years the field of embedded computing has exploded. My tape measure has a digital read out on the side making the markings on the tape itself redundant and my kitchen scales are digital, after a quick tally of the devices I can see in my living room I’ve counted at least fifteen processors. The increased afford ability of embedded controllers and a recent trend in the development of controllers specifically for amateur use has lead to a very interesting growth in hobby craft at the intersection between electronics and software development. This posts details some of the more promising micro controllers I have encountered.

The PIC Micro Controller

The PIC is by far the most affordable micro controller coming in at under a fiver per chip. There are a range of models, each comes as a single microchip. Each generally has very limited computing power, with a processing speed in the vicinity of 30MHz and memory somewhere around 64-128KB for most models. While its processing power is a limitation they are also very small and have a minimal power requirement making them ideal for projects where size constraints are an issue and mains power is not available. The PIC is programmed using a language called PIC-BASIC which is very similar to other implementations of the BASIC language.

Lego NXT

This is my personal favorite. Lego NXT is the robotics platform favored by educational establishments for its easy of use and re usability. The kit allows its user to create robots out of Lego style pieces, the robot can see its world using a touch, color, sonar or sound sensor and interact with it using three motors. The sensors and motors are controlled by what the kit calls an NXT Brick, this is essentially a micro controller unit which connects to its peripherals using modified network cables. It processing power is greater than the PIC but is still limited compared to its other competitors. The kits real advantage is that it makes prototyping spectacularly simple as no manufacturing or tools are involved. The micro controller can be programmed using a variety of languages including Java, Microsoft Robotics Studio, C and the development environment that is shipped with it which is called Mindstorm.

TINI Micro Controller

TINI stands for Tiny Internet Interface. This controller is very interesting as it was designed with networking in mind. Out of the box it features an Ethernet socket and can be extended to include 802.11 wireless. It features a 75MHz processor, up to 16Mb addressable memory, three serial ports and its operating system implements the all the core protocols required to operate on the internet. The operating system a modified Java virtual machine which allows developers to write applications for it using Java with a specialized library included. This micro controller is ideal for situations where multiple embedded devices will need to cooperate to complete a task or where the embedded device needs to be controlled remotely.

Arduino Duemilanove

The Arduino takes inputs from a variety of sensors and switches and can control an array of lights motors and other actuators. The device can run applications independently or can interact with programs running on a PC via a USB connection. It is completely open source device and its development environment is an open source modification of the Wires environment. This particular controller is interesting as it already has a large hobbyists community, is easy to program and I have found help to always be forthcoming when I run into trouble.

Computers continue to advance at a phenomenal rate. They are now sufficiently powerful that they should be able to emulate the functionality of a mammalian brain. The complexity of the task has thus far exceeded the capabilities of even the most powerful computers. However, a new generation of supercomputers has been developed that utilizes hundreds of smaller computers made from off the shelf hardware networked together to share their processing power. This has led to computers that are many times more powerful than previous generations. In 2008 IBM developed their latest supercomputer, Roadrunner, which has achieved a computation rate of just over 1 petaflop and utilizes nearly 20,000 parallel processors.

Unfortunately the processing requirement is not the only hurdle that needs to be overcome in order to emulate a mammalian brain. The brain is an incredibly complicated organ whose inner workings aren’t yet fully understood. This daunting task has been taken on by University of Wisconsin-Madison research psychiatrist Giulio Tononi. Giulio is an internationally renowned expert on conciousness and is working with a team of renowned experts to fulfill the tasks specified in their $4.9m DARPA grant to develop Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics or SyNAPSE.

While the project will endeavour to emulate the full abilities of the human brain, its finished artifact will likely differ significantly from its structure. Part of the research will to determine which mechanisms in the brain are essential to achieving conciousness. The brains of even the smallest of mammals have significant abilities such as learning, sensory processing, decision making and motor control. Tononi has a great deal of experience in this area having worked on several previous projects geared towards developing thinking machines.

The software development outsourcing business is expecting a noticeable decline in 2009. The national association of software and service companies, Delhi, is statistics show a growth of 28.2% in 2007-2008 but figures so far this year predict only a growth rate of 21-24% for 2008-2009, if this trend continues into 2009 the industry may need to rethink its expansion plans for 2009 and beyond. Even with the current downturn  in predicted growth this still leaves the Indian software outsourcing industry well on track to achieve its stated goal of achieving $60 billion by 2010.  In the last eight the average growth in this sector has been 33.6%  which is a phenomenal achievement in achievement for any industry. The industry has managed to weather the current economic crisis well by diversifying their client base into unaffected areas such as  public transport and health care but was still affected as its current reduced rate of growth shows. Their is a fear that cost cutting measures may have an effect on employment in this sector. It currently employs 2 million IT works, a number that has been growing by 26% annually. Their is also a concern that its contentious status in the US presidential elections may affect its growth further.

HP Labs engineers led by R. Stanley Williams have invented the memory resistor or ‘memristor’. This discovery could allow manufacturers to develop chips that do not need to be kept charged to retain their memory state and consume far less power.  They  also allow information to be  stored in a fashion similar to the way a human brain does. This circuit component was first theorized 37 years ago by Leon Chua at Berkeley. What makes this component unique is that is exhibits properties that can’t be duplicated by any combination of the first three fundamental circuit components, the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor.Today’s computer hardware industry is becoming increasingly environmentally conscious  and this latest discovery in the field of electronics and nano technology could  make a big difference to computings green credentials.

A top UK computer forensics expert narrowly escaped jail today on four charges of making false witness statements and on count of perjury. While providing expert testimony Jim Bates, 67, falsely claimed to have an electronic engineering degree. Over the past two decades he has provided expert testimony in dozens of criminal cases. He also developed a forensic imaging software tool which was used by several police forces. He received five 6 month sentences suspended for two years and was ordered to pay £1000 in court costs.

Bates career capitalized greatly from his mean streak. He often used his professional reputation to attack the competence of other prominent computer forensic experts. These attacks were often delivered via his website which is hosted outside the UK to avoid the legal consequences.

One of the more prominent cases worked on by Bates was that of detective Gurpal Virdi who was accused in 2000 of sending racist letters to himself. An employment tribunal found in his favor and reinstated his job despite Bates evidence supporting the case against him.

Scientists at Tel Aviv university have developed a computer system capable of determining how attractive a photograph of a women is using facial recognition techniques. The software was first trained by being exposed to many many photographs of women alongside attractiveness scores determined by human judgment. This information is then used to determine common facial patterns and combinations of features that are considered attractive or unattractive. Now that it is trained the computer system can determine the attractiveness of any womans photograph provided. This technology has implications not just for beauty pageants but also the cosmetic surgery industry, evidence analysis in law enforcement or profile matching in online dating. The belief that beauty can be calculated with angles and ratios in not a new one. More than 2000 years ago Pythagoras determined that their was a connection between facial geometry and perceived beauty. He also determined that objects with features corresponding to the ‘golden ratio’ were seen as more attractive.