computer

Inspiration, Open Source and Sun SPOTs

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Roger Meike
Director of Operations, Sun Labs
Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Embedded computers are all around us. There are many more embedded computers than there are people on the planet. The implications of the growth of these devices is staggering. While the internet has more than a billion computers connected to it, there are several times that number of cell phones connected to the internet. Sun has created an open source technology called Sun SPOT to help create the “internet of things.” The mission is to inspire a community of developers to invent the next generation of connected devices using Sun’s technology. Roger will discuss strategies and tactics employed as well as the results of Sun’s activities so far in this area.

Roger Meike is Senior Director, Area 51 and Director of Operations, Sun Microsystems Laboratories. His background is in cognitive science and his career has led him back and forth between new start companies and large research organizations. While his background is mostly in software, he also enjoys consorting with hardware folks. He has been accused of being many things including photo enthusiast, sailor, ham radio operator, musician and techno-geek/nerd.
Bring your curiosity and see you there!

When Computers Look at Art

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David Stork
Ricoh Innovations

Thanks to cutting edge advancements in computer science, questions and controversies in the study of art are now being answered in ways that were not previously possible. For example, computer analysis is currently being used to authenticate paintings attributed to artists such as Jackson Pollock and Vincent Van Gogh. And analysis of perspective, shading, color and form has thrown a wrench into David Hockney’s bold claim that as early as 1420, Renaissance artists employed optical devices such as concave mirrors to project images onto their canvases. How do these computer methods work? What can computers reveal about images that even the best-trained connoisseurs, art historians and artist cannot? How much more powerful and revealing will these methods become? In short, how is computer image analysis changing our understanding of art?

Join us as David Stork addresses these questions and more. David is Chief Scientist at Ricoh Innovations. He is also a Consulting Professor of Statistics at Stanford, and a Fellow of the International Association for Pattern Recognition. He has authored and co-authored many publications, including Seeing the Light, the leading textbook on optics and the arts; Pattern Classification, the best-selling textbook in the field, and other critical works. He is also the creator of the PBS Documentary, 2001: HAL’s Legacy.