Spiritual Computing

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Google Tech Talks
September 28, 2006

Craig Warren Smith, a Seattle native, is a former Harvard (Kennedy School) professor, a founder of the global movement to close the Digital Divide, and for 30 years a Buddhist teacher. In the mid-1990s as a consultant to Bill Gates, he led a strategic planning process that helped Microsoft and its founder find the distinct role of philanthropy in its corporate culture.

ABSTRACT
Can the next generation of technologies advance the spiritual development of individuals and communities? The speaker, director of the Spiritual Computing Research Group (www.spiritualcomputing.com), will argue that several trends — Web 2.0 innovations, neuroscience’s interactions…

How Would You Make “Miuro” The Ultimate Music Concierge??

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Google Tech Talks
October 20, 2006

ABSTRACT
ZMP INC, the japanese company that created the world famous humanoid PINO and nuvo, has anounced the development of its latest creation, a musical robot called “miuro.” miuro is a network music player that moves freely around a room. The user with the touch of a button, can record his favourite places for listening music and miuro is able to move to those places by itself and let its owner enjoy his/her favourite music. At this moment, we operate our miuro using a remote control but in the future we would like to make miuro’s behavior much more intelligent by incorporating several new features. For example, we would like that miuro can learn the user…

FIRST LEGO League Nano Quest Challenge Kickoff

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Google Tech Talks
September 15, 2006

Mark Edelman is Co-founder and Director of Technology for Playing At Learning, a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded to identify, develop, support, and foster technology-based educational enrichment programs for children. He has over 13 years of experience as a software engineer, and has spent 5 years as a youth robotics coach, mentor,instructor, and volunteer.

ABSTRACT
A gathering of the Northern California FIRST LEGO League community to formally kick of the 2006 Nano Quest Challenge.

At the gathering, there will be:

– Viewing of a short video explaining the 2006 Nano Quest Robot Game
– A Description of the 2006 Nano Quest Research Project
– A Discussion of…

Darfur

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Google Tech Talks
November 8, 2006

ABSTRACT
In 2004 Mark Brecke travelled for 5 weeks to Darfur and the refugee camps of Eastern Chad to photographically document the Darfur genocide. He will be presenting his photos, and sharing his remarkable stories. Credits: Speaker:Mark Brecke

Understanding Urban Environments Through the Use of…

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Google Tech Talks
December 13, 2006

ABSTRACT

For 3D global visualization systems, it is important to be able to render city-sized collections of relatively simple building models at fast speeds without losing spatial coherence. Since traditional mesh simplification algorithms are not designed for collections of simple models, we introduce a method of simplification through merging of similar objects. We incorporate the concept of “urban legibility” from architecture and city-planning as a guideline for simplifying city models. Our algorithm can be broken down into five steps. Hierarchical clustering, cluster merging, polyline simplification, and hierarchical texturing are performed during…

Better Than Ethanol? BTL in plug-in hybrid diesel vehicles

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Google Tech Talks
September 20, 2006

Reed M. Benet
Biofuels Focused Ph.D. Student University of California Davis Institute of Transportation Studies
Consultant to The Energy Foundation, Chevron, Nissan
10 Years Founding, Funding, Consulting to or Leading Venture Capital Backed Life Sciences, High-Tech or Energy-Tech Co’s
Europe Finance & Operations
5 Years USMC Infantry Officer

Harvard MBA (Entrepreneurship)
Princeton B.A. (Politics)

ABSTRACT
Speaker proposes that plug-in hybrid diesel vehicles (versus gasoline variants) combined with biomass-to-liquid gasification and fischer-tropsch diesel fuels (versus ethanol, cellulosic or otherwise) is the best holistic and medium- to long-term…

Deconstructing The Xbox Security System

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Google Tech Talks
December 1, 2006

ABSTRACT

In late 2001, Microsoft released the Xbox, their first gaming console, to compete against Sony and Nintendo in the living room. As the real money is made with the games and not the consoles, Microsoft had to make sure (as much as they could) that nobody could play pirated games or use the machine for anything other than games. Although the original security design idea was a good one and has been copied a lot since then, Microsoft’s inexperienced team made a variety of design, implementation, and policy mistakes. This talk first (re)constructs the design of the Xbox security system from Microsoft’s point of view, and then deconstructs it from the…