Singapore-MIT Research

MIT students have developed AudiOdyssey, a computer game for visually impaired users. AudiOdyssey simulates a DJ trying to create a catchy tune and get people to dance. The player uses the Nintendo Wii's remote-control device to create a rhythm and lay down a series of musical tracks, gradually building a song. Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab graduate student Eitan Gilnert says that although the Wii gaming system has attracted a lot of people who never previously played video games, people with disabilities are being left behind. Gilnert started to research available video games that were designed for the visually impaired, and found that the games were so specifically adapted for sound and tactile play that they gave visually-impaired players too much of an advantage. Gilnert set out to create a game that could be played equally well by both visually impaired and sighted players. The game also is designed to be played on a regular keyboard for those without Wiis. Gilnert says the game is an early prototype and limited in its capabilities. MIT Comparative Media Studies program graduate Alicia Verlager, who is blind, helped develop the game. "The element I probably most envy about gamers is just the way they hang out together and share doing something fun," Verlager says. "Hanging out with other gamers playing AudiOdyssey was really fun."

Visual Analytics

Visual analytics is the current focus of Jim Thomas, director of the U.S. Homeland Security Department-sponsored National Visualization and Analytics Center (NVAC), who describes the field as "the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces." A 2006 paper posits that visual analytics integrates visualization with human factors, geospatial, scientific analytics, and information so that people can extract individual fragments of a whole from a vast volume of unstructured data, and then piece the whole together. NVAC's mission is fivefold: To understand the vulnerabilities of and risk to critical U.S. infrastructure, reduce the terrorism threat, devise a visual communication infrastructure for response teams, cultivate an enduring talent base, and produce effective communications metaphors that can encompass the conclusions of risk evaluations as well as the evidence and chain of logic. Among the users of NVAC's products are intelligence analysts who must sift through the Web information streams and first responders managing a crisis as it occurs. Thomas says the presentation of information in a context that is apropos to individual users is vital, while discovery, comprehension, and confirmation requires interaction. He says the visual analytics field has expanded to more than 1,000 researchers up from 40 researchers just a few years ago. Thomas says about 50 percent of NVAC's funding is committed to basic research via a quintet of university-led research centers, each of which has a regional partner to help focus its research.

IT Skills Demographics

New data from IT job board Sapphire Technology reveals significant patterns in the availability of technology jobs in different regions in the United States. For example, more than 58 percent of all available tech jobs in Austin, Texas, were in software development, primarily due to the large number of startup companies in Austin. In Chicago, project management positions accounted for more than 52 percent of job listings, which Sapphire's Mike Giglio attributes to the large number of mergers that have occurred in recent years. Software development skills were also in high demand in Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the D.C. metropolitan area, and Sacramento, Calif. Meanwhile, one-third of available IT job listings for the Los Angeles area were for desktop support. In fact, there were more listings for help desk jobs than for any other type of technology work in Los Angeles. Giglio says that companies in the Los Angeles area are so fast-paced that if anything happens to the systems they are working on they need it fixed right away and they staff their companies accordingly.

Stealing Data Research

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and Saarland University in Saarbrucken, Germany, have found unconventional ways of stealing data. In Saarbrucken, the researchers have been able to read computer screens using reflections on objects such as glasses and teapots. Meanwhile, UCSB researchers have created Clear Shot, software that analyzes a video of hands typing on a keyboard to determine what was being written. Clear Shot was inspired by the movie "Sneakers," in which Robert Redford's character obtains a video of his potential victim typing in his password and says he is going to get a "clear shot." Clear Shot can analyze video of hand movements on a computer keyboard and transcribe them into text. UCSB graduate student Marco Cova says Clear Shot is accurate about 40 percent of the time. The software also suggests alternative words that may have been typed. Saarland University professor Michael Backes says his research began as a fun project to see if he could tell what other people were working on by watching windows near computer monitors. The researchers soon found that using a $500 telescope focused on a reflective object in front of a monitor could create readable images of Word documents. The researchers are now working on new image analysis algorithms and using astronomical cameras in the hopes of getting better images from more difficult surfaces such as the human eye.

Brain Monitoring System

Researchers at Taiwan's National Chiao-Tung University and National Cheng-Kung University and the University of California, San Diego have designed a new bio-signal monitoring system that fits inside a baseball cap and detects and analyzes electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from the wearer's brain. The cap is capable of determining if someone is getting too tired to drive based on brain-wave patterns and could be configured to control TVs, computers, and other electronic devices. The wireless system can process and provide feedback in real time. The researchers say that measuring EEG signals enables the brain-computer interface system to monitor an individual's physiological and cognitive states. The system capitalizes on recent advancements in sensor and information technology to reduce power consumption and production costs. It can run on a lithium-ion battery for about two days before needing charging, and the researchers hope to increase the device's efficiency. The cap includes five embedded dry electrodes for the wearer's forehead and one electrode for behind the ear to read EEG signals. The system includes Bluetooth transmissions for distances up to 10 meters and RF transmissions for distances up to 600 meters.

MIT Research

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ambient Intelligence Group scientists have developed Quickies, intelligent Post-it notes that combine artificial intelligence, RFID, and ink-recognition technologies. Quickies can communicate with PCs to relay any information written on them to a computer for display on a variety of electronic devices. The Quickie writer uses digital-pen hardware that translates the movement of the pen on the surface of the paper note into digital information. The information can be viewed at any time using Quickie software, which stores the notes as images and converts the handwritten notes into computer text using handwriting recognition algorithms. The Quickie software allows users to browse through their notes and search for specific information or keywords. Using a commonsense knowledge engine and computational AI techniques, the software analyzes the notes and categorizes them to provide users with reminders, alerts, messages, and relevant information. Each Quickie note has a unique RFID tag so it can be placed around a house or office, preventing users from losing a book or other object marked with a Quickie. Users can tell the software to remind them of important notes at specific times, and the software can synchronize Quickie to-do lists with task lists on mobile phones and laptops.

Xerox Palo Alto Research

Researchers at the Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) recently demonstrated the Seamless Documents project, mobile phone technology that can store a scanned document in a database and analyze its structure and content. The analysis is used to identify sections and paragraphs to automatically extract key phrases that summarize sections, enabling users to jump to a section labeled with a key word, or skip to the last paragraph on a page, when reading the document on a mobile phone. The software also automatically resizes images, section headers, and plain text when a user is scrolling through the document. The first part of the Seamless Documents project focuses on converting analog documents into digital information that can be stored in a database and accessed using the Internet and cell-phone networks. FXPAL software analyzes the document's structure to find paragraph breaks, pictures, and section titles. The software then automatically summarizes text and chooses key words and concepts from each section to highlight for the user. The second part of the project involves software that runs on mobile phones. The software opens the document and displays extracted information. The user can see a view of the document with key phrases in a large font, overlaid on top of paragraphs and segments.