Applied COIN Lab

1
Applied COIN Lab

• Anatole Gershman, Alan Black, Louis Van Ahn
• TA Mehrbod Sharifi
• August 26, 2008

2
Who are we?
Anatole Gershman
Alan W Black
Mehrbod Sharifi
Luis von Ahn
3
Why are we teaching this class?
This class is about inventing Applications
People dont use computers they use
applications In your future jobs youll be
building applications
4
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
5
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
6
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
7
Class Schedule
8/28/08 First Class 9/4/08 Proposal Groups
(1-3) 9/11/08 Mockup (Specs and PPT) 9/18/08
9/25/08 Final Plan and starting work 10/2/08
10/9/08 10/16/08 10/23/08 10/30/08 Mid Point
Milestone 11/6/08 11/13/08 11/20/08 11/27/08
No class - Thanksgiving 12/4/08 Project
presentations 12/11/08 Project presentation
final report
8
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
9
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
10
Project ideas Smart Online Cabinet
How would the cabinet know whats 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?
11
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
12
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?
13
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?
14
Project ideas Tricorder
Or the remote control to the world
Scan the environment to see whats
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.
15
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
16
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
17
Tools and equipment
PDAs Smart Phones
Bluetooth beacons
RFID kits
Headsets and speech kits
Sensor kits
Webcams
Laptops
18
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