Computing News

Human Media Lab Featured on CKWS Television

belloa — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:40:43 +0000

This past weekend, Roel Vertegaal and the team at the Human Media Lab unveiled what is being hailed as the first ever “Boutique Laboratory”. See the featured story, covered by CKWS-TV, here.

Human Media Lab Research Team Develops TeleHuman Hologram System

belloa — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:26:18 +0000

A research team from the Human Media Lab, headed by Roel Vertegaal, has developed a hologram system that produces life-size, three-dimensional holograms. The team was rounded out by John Bolton, Kibum Kim, Peng Wang and McGill University professor Jeremy Cooperstock. The story was featured in The Kingston Whig Standard, Queen’s News Centre, The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, CTV, QR77 (Calgary Talk Radio), CBC Radio and more than 50 other newspapers and websites across Canada. It was also featured in News Track India, the Los Angeles Times, United Press International, Canberra Times, Brisbane Times, Sydney Morning Herald, Daily Mail, Wired, Discovery Channel News, HSXD.com, Txchnologist, Logiciel, YouTube and several other technology and media outlets from around the world. The YouTube video demonstrating the technology received more than 21,000 hits in the first 24 hours.

Human Media Lab Featured on Daily Planet

belloa — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:26:36 +0000

The Discovery Channel’s “Daily Planet” recently featured the Human Media Lab, the first ever boutique laboratory. Click HERE to see the whole episode!

The Human Media Lab is the First Ever Boutique Laboratory

belloa — Wed, 02 May 2012 18:38:03 +0000

A new futuristic Human Media Lab, designed to inspire students through a creative and flexible workplace environment, opens next week. The lab serves as one big interactive playground, allowing students to hack and experiment with the architecture and space as a user interface.

Computing professor and Queen’s Human Media Lab director Roel Vertegaal collaborated on the laboratory’s design with New York-based Karim Rashid, who Time magazine calls “the most famous industrial designer in all the Americas.”

“We believe it is important to surround graduate students with great, inspirational room design. A stimulating room produces stimulating ideas. So we created the world’s first boutique laboratory,” says Dr. Vertegaal. The new Human Media Lab is designed to inspire creativity.

Laboratory and other work environments are notorious for being designed as functional, linear spaces that are not suitable for innovative thinking. Instead the new laboratory features space to think, a cantilevered table to collaborate around, and pods and offices for focus work. Walls and windows are flexible and curved, rather than straight and flat.

One of the laboratory’s main features is a 16-by-9 feet interactive flexible display with gesture technology as seen in the futuristic Tom Cruise film Minority Report. Users in front of the wall-sized display use in-air gestures to control the user interface by moving objects around the screen.

This may be the way people interact with future computers seamlessly integrated into their surrounding space. Eye trackers recognize when people in adjoining cubicles are looking at each other, automatically turning the translucent glass between them transparent for communication.

The laboratory was funded through a grant by Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ministry of Research and Innovation of Ontario.

Click here for more details about new Human Media Lab.

(This story appeared in the Queen’s News Centre on May 1, 2012)

David Skillicorn Discusses DNSChanger Virus

belloa — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:00:51 +0000

David Skillicorn was interviewed recently by the Toronto Star and was asked to comment on the DNSChanger virus, which is expected to affect computers as of July 9, 2012.

Read the entire article here.

Geoff Seaborn Wins Best Poster Award

belloa — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 15:34:50 +0000

Congratulations to Queen’s School of Computing Ph.D. candidate Geoff Seaborn, who has won a best poster award at the Eighth Annual Congress of the European Cardiac Arrhythmia Society (ECAS), held in Munich, Germany, April 20-22, 2012, for his paper “HRV and procedural outcome in catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation”.

Queen’s Graduate Computing Society Conference 2012

belloa — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:03:35 +0000

You are invited to the third Queen’s Graduate Computing Society Conference (QGCSC 2012), which will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, May 9-10, 2012. The main highlights of QGCSC 2012 are:

1) Distinguished keynote speakers:
Dr. Steve Easterbrook, Dr. Esin Kiris and Dr. Selim Akl
We are proud to have three great speakers this year, which are Dr. Steve Easterbrook, Dr. Esin Kiris and Dr. Selim Akl. The first speaker, Dr. Steve Easterbrook is from the University of Toronto. He will give us an overview of history and his research in the exciting area of climate modeling, which involves tools known from software engineering. Dr. Esin Kiris from CA Technologies will show us her work that combines research and industry in the area of Human Computer Interactions. Our final speaker, Dr. Selim Akl, is the director of Queen’s School of Computing, and he will present us the highlights of his research in the area of unconventional computing.

2) Panel discussion:
Has social media changed computer science as we know it?
We will be holding a panel discussion on the effects of social media within computer science. More specifically we want to hear from panelists their opinions on how permanent are those effects and what do they mean for scientists and for practitioners. The discussion will involve our guests, Dr. Esin Kiris and Dr. Steve Easterbrook, and representatives of the School of Computing: Dr. James Cordy, Wendy Powley and Scott Grant.

3) Scientific presentations and posters from our students
This is one of the most important events during our conference. Students from many different research areas, such as networking, biomedical computing, software engineering, computation theory and human computer interactions will present their achievements. This is a showcase of the breadth and depth of the research that is conducted in the School of Computing, of which we are all very proud.

4) Programming competition
We will have a competition between labs and we will find out which lab has the best programmers!

More information and the detailed program are available on our website. Please note that the registration for the event closes April, 24.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference!

Nick Graham Awarded NSERC CHRP Grant

belloa — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:49:22 +0000

We are very pleased to report that Queen’s School of Computing Professor Nick Graham has been awarded an NSERC Collaborative Health Research Project grant for his Cerebral Palsy Fit ‘n Fun research.

Nick will be collaborating with Holland Bloorview Hospital on improving fitness for children with Cerebral Palsy.

Well done, Nick, on your first application to the NSERC CHRP funding program!

CKWS Interviews Nick Graham at the Creative Computing Event

belloa — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:20:30 +0000

Nick was interviewed by CKWS Television during the Creative Computing event, which was held April 5 at the Queen’s BioSciences Building. In the interview, he comments on computing in the modern era.

See Nick’s interview here.

Computer Science Transitions from Elective to Requirement – US News

belloa — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:09:16 +0000

Although many universities offer computer science as an option to satisfy science or math requirements, some schools are now making it a required course in order to graduate. For example, each of the nearly 2,000 freshmen entering the Georgia Institute of Technology each year must take a computer science course regardless of their major, says College of Computing Associate Dean Charles Isbell. In addition, every student at Montclair State University must complete a computer science course in order to graduate. Most Montclair students take “Introduction to Computer Applications: Being Fluent with Information Technology,” which is designed to teach students majoring in non-technical fields about network security, artificial intelligence, databases and e-commerce, says Computer Science Department Chairman Michael Oudshoorn. “It’s not aimed at making them experts; it’s aimed at making them aware,” Oudshoorn says. “They do live in a digital age … they have an obligation to know something about the technology.” University of California, Irvine professor Geoffrey Bowker says more schools should make computer science a requirement. “All aspects of our personal lives and our work lives are affected by computers,” he says. “We need to know about the tools that we’re working with.”

View the full article from US News here.

NSERC Discovery and RTI Results

belloa — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:50:08 +0000

We are delighted to announce that the Queen’s School of Computing has done very well at this year’s NSERC Discovery and RTI competitions.

Congratulations to Jim Cordy, Randy Ellis, Nick Graham, and James Stewart who have seen their Discovery Grants renewed, thus maintaining the QSC’s renewal success rate at 100%.

Congratulations to Kibum Kim on receiving his first Discovery Grant, along with an Early Career Researcher supplement.

Congratulations to Roel Vertegaal on receiving an RTI grant.

These grants represent a research income of over $834,000 for the School over the next five years. Well done!

Third Annual Queen’s Computing Invitational High School Programming Contest

belloa — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:40:12 +0000

Area high schools entered six teams of students in the Third Annual Programming Contest hosted by the Queen’s School of Computing and held on March 30, in co-operation with the Limestone District School Board, and the Algonquin & Lakeshore District Catholic School Board. The contest consisted of a set of four programming problems which the teams had to try to solve in three hours. The winning team was from St. Theresa Catholic Secondary School of Belleville, coached by Mr. Daniel Tie Ten Quee. The three top teams from the contest will compete at the next level of the Educational Computing Organization of Ontario’s programming contest series later in April. Well done, all!

Organizers for the event were Richard Linley, Doug Wightman and Lynda Moulton from the School of Computing, and Mr. Kerry Haight from the Limestone District School Board.

Vignettes of the event, as captured by Dave Dove, can be seen here: http://www.cs.queensu.ca/aboutus/highlights/put_item.php?year=2012&highlight=hsprogcontest.php

Thanks to all!

Can the U.S. Credit Card Hack Affect Canadians? David Skillicorn Weighs In

belloa — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:33:19 +0000

The School of Computing’s David Skillicorn was recently interviewed on the CTV News Network, CBC Radio and by the Toronto Star on the subject of the U.S. credit card hack and how it might affect Canadians.

David Skillicorn Weighs in on NDP Cyber Attack

belloa — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:47:25 +0000

David was interviewed about the cyber attack on the NDP leadership convention that used more than 10,000 computers, on Global TV National, Toronto Star, Edmonton Journal, Winnipeg Free Press, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, CBC.ca and many other websites and newspapers across Canada.

What do the Canadian Highway Network and Slime Mold Have in Common? Selim Akl Provides Insight

belloa — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:24:46 +0000

The School of Computing’s Selim Akl has recently been much in the news as he posits the similarities between the design of the Canadian Highway Network and the behaviour of slime mold. Dr. Alk was featured in The National Post, Science Daily.com, Physorg.com, Scientific Canadian, PBS, the Queen’s News Centre, the Kingston Whig Standard and CKWS TV. Follow the links below to get the whole story.

The Kingston Whig Standard

Nick Graham on BioWear “A Great Canadian Success Story”

belloa — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:30:11 +0000

The School of Computing’s Nick Graham commented on Edmonton video game developer BioWare, calling it “a great Canadian success story”, in the Globe and Mail and CTV.ca. Read the entire story here.

Roel Vertegaal Weighs in on Nokia’s Magnetic Tattoo

belloa — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:58:47 +0000

Roel was recently asked by the Toronto Star to comment on the pending patent for Nokia’s vibrating tattoo. Read the whole story here.

Nick Graham Talks About Liberi Live on The Sci Show

belloa — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:36:16 +0000

Watch Nick Graham comment on his interactive game Liberi Live on the Sci Show, and find out why it is fun for both players and designers (Nick’s segment begins at minute 3:15):

April 5 – Creative Computing: Art, Games, Research

bhall — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:32:26 +0000

Be sure to mark Thursday April 5th from 1:30-3 so that you can attend the Queen’s School of Computing’s day of Creative Computing: Art, Games, Research. The day will highlight the work of the School’s undergraduate and graduate students with hands-on demos, presentations, and posters from Game Design and Game Technology, Computing and the Creative Arts, 4th year projects, and the Queen’s School of Computing-sponsored CyberFalcon Robotics Team from Frontenac Secondary School.

The event will take place in the Biosciences Complex and will be a terrific opportunity for everyone to see first-hand what our creative students create throughout the school term.

Computing and the Creative Arts: COCA201
Computing and the Creative Arts (COCA) 201 is the introductory course for the Computing and the Creative Arts undergraduate program at the Queen’s University School of Computing. COCA201 is a studio-oriented, half-credit course that encourages collaboration between students from diverse backgrounds in order to create interactive art pieces using state- of-the-art technologies. COCA201 provides an overview of the impact of computing in various arts-related fields, such as new-media art, electronic music, art preservation and analysis, computer animation, theatre and dance, industrial and architectural design, and computer games. Students enrolled in COCA201 acquire the technical expertise to design and develop new and relevant applications that take full advantage of the latest trends in digital technology.

Game Design and Game Technology: CISC 226/CISC877

Students of CISC 226, Game Design will show off their course projects. Their challenge? To come up with a game idea that has never been done before, and make it reality. The students will have hands-on demos of 17 games.

Students of 877 will show off their projects on novel game technology. The games show off novel networking algorithms, artificial intelligence, procedural content generation, and even a tool for designing your own controller on-the-fly. Four hands-on demos will show the results of their work.

Fourth Year Projects: CISC 499

Analysis of Sensory Motor Skills in Stroke Patients
Game Balancing for Multiple Players
Topic & Deception Models in Text
Comprehensive miRNA Target Identification
Computer-Assisted Training in Needle Placement
Measuring the Degree of Approximation of Formal Language Approximations
Improving Pre-Literacy Skills in Children with Developmental Disabilities
Experimentation with Kiltera
Network Intrusion Sensors

CyberFalcon Robotics Frontenac Secondary

The CyberFalcon team is made of grade nine to twelve students from Frontenac Secondary School who share a common interest in robotics. Skills and working styles from their diverse interests come into play on the robotics team. The group has recently returned from a robotics competition in which they placed 5th of 37. Their robot will be on-hand for the day. The group will answer questions and demonstrate the operation and capabilities of their creation.

Come back to this site and visit our Facebook Page for further updates on the day’s planned events!

March Break Open House – Thank You, Volunteers!

belloa — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:48:56 +0000

On March 12 and 13, Queen’s held a March Break Open House. The Queen’s School of Computing was well represented by a group of enthusiastic volunteers who entertained a record number of visitors, answering their questions and showing them exciting demos at the QSC station in Grant Hall. On behalf of everyone in the School many thanks to:

Jim Cordy
Gabor Fichtinger
Ben Hall
Geoffrey Seaborn
Scott Grant
Tad Stach
Laura Bartha
Simrin Nagpal
Layan Nahlawi
Sharief Oteafy
Charlotte Blinston
Paul Geesaman
Rob Staalduinen
Leah Robert
Cara (Bing) Yu Yu
Boyang Fu
Irene LaFleche
Bob Tennent