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Why Quantum Computing Will Change the World | by Noah Graham | Dec, 2023 – Medium

The elusive cure for cancer, the eradication of car accidents, and a sustainable future free from fossil fuels these formidable challenges, once thought to be centuries away from resolution, might be here sooner than anticipated. The driving force behind this big change? Quantum computing. This cutting-edge technology transcends traditional computing by processing multiple outcomes simultaneously, significantly outpacing even the most advanced supercomputers of our era.

To understand how quantum computing could revolutionize our world, its crucial to first grasp what sets it apart from classical computing. Traditional computers use bits as the basic unit of information, which can either be a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers, however, utilize quantum bits or qubits. These qubits can exist in multiple states at once, enabling them to perform complex calculations at unprecedented speeds.

One of the most promising applications of quantum computing lies in healthcare, particularly in the fight against cancer. Quantum computers can analyze vast datasets of genetic information, environmental factors, and treatment outcomes to identify potential cures and personalized treatments. This approach could dramatically accelerate the development of effective therapies, potentially unlocking the secrets to curing cancer. This could also allow us to find the cure for many other diseases because of the ability to test chemical compounds so quickly.

Quantum computing also has the potential to revolutionize transportation. By processing enormous amounts of data from sensors, traffic patterns, and environmental conditions in real-time, quantum-powered AI systems could drastically reduce, if not eliminate, car accidents. This would not only save lives but also pave the way for more efficient, autonomous vehicles.

The energy sector stands on the brink of a quantum revolution. Quantum computing could optimize renewable energy systems, enhance battery storage capacities, and improve energy distribution networks. These advancements could lead to more effective use of renewable resources, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and mitigating the effects of climate change.

Despite its potential, quantum computing faces significant challenges. The technology is still in its infancy, and developing stable, large-scale quantum computers remains a daunting task. Moreover, with great power comes great responsibility. Ensuring ethical use and preventing misuse of quantum computing in areas like surveillance and cybersecurity is paramount.

While we may not have all the answers yet, quantum computing promises a future where some of todays most daunting problems could be effectively addressed. From healthcare to transportation, and energy sustainability, the quantum leap could be closer than we think, heralding a new era of innovation and problem-solving.

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The Biggest Discoveries in Computer Science in 2023 – Quanta Magazine

In 2023, artificial intelligence dominated popular culture showing up in everything from internet memes to Senate hearings. Large language models such as those behind ChatGPT fueled a lot of this excitement, even as researchers still struggled to pry open the black box that describes their inner workings. Image generation systems also routinely impressed and unsettled us with their artistic abilities, yet these were explicitly founded on concepts borrowed from physics.

The year brought many other advances in computer science. Researchers made subtle but important progress on one of the oldest problems in the field, a question about the nature of hard problems referred to as P versus NP. In August, my colleague Ben Brubaker explored this seminal problem and the attempts of computational complexity theorists to answer the question: Why is it hard (in a precise, quantitative sense) to understand what makes hard problems hard? It hasnt been an easy journey the path is littered with false turns and roadblocks, and it loops back on itself again and again, Brubaker wrote. Yet for meta-complexity researchers, that journey into an uncharted landscape is its own reward.

The year was also full of more discrete but still important pieces of individual progress. Shors algorithm, the long-promised killer app of quantum computing, got its first significant upgrade after nearly 30 years. Researchers finally learned how to find the shortest route through a general type of network nearly as fast as theoretically possible. And cryptographers, forging an unexpected connection to AI, showed how machine learning models and machine-generated content must also contend with hidden vulnerabilities and messages.

Some problems, it seems, are still beyond our ability to solve for now.

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Artists Use Tech Weapons Against AI Copycats – Voice of America – VOA News

NEW YORK

Artists under siege by artificial intelligence that studies their work and then replicates their styles, have teamed with university researchers to stymie such copycat activity.

U.S. illustrator Paloma McClain went into defense mode after learning that several AI models had been trained using her art, with no credit or compensation sent her way.

"It bothered me," McClain told AFP.

"I believe truly meaningful technological advancement is done ethically and elevates all people instead of functioning at the expense of others," she said.

The artist turned to free software called Glaze created by researchers at the University of Chicago.

Glaze essentially outthinks AI models when it comes to how they train, tweaking pixels in ways that are indiscernible to human viewers but which make a digitized piece of art appear dramatically different to AI.

"We're basically providing technical tools to help protect human creators against invasive and abusive AI models," said Ben Zhao, a professor of computer science on the Glaze team.

Created in just four months, Glaze spun off technology used to disrupt facial recognition systems.

"We were working at super-fast speed because we knew the problem was serious," Zhao said of rushing to defend artists from software imitators. "A lot of people were in pain."

Generative AI giants have agreements to use data for training in some cases, but the majority of digital images, audio, and text used to shape the way supersmart software thinks has been scraped from the internet without explicit consent.

Since its release in March, Glaze has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times, according to Zhao.

Zhao's team is working on a Glaze enhancement called Nightshade that notches up defenses by confusing AI, say by getting it to interpret a dog as a cat.

"I believe Nightshade will have a noticeable effect if enough artists use it and put enough poisoned images into the wild," McClain said, meaning they would be easily available online.

"According to Nightshade's research, it wouldn't take as many poisoned images as one might think," she said.

Zhao's team has been approached by several companies that want to use Nightshade, according to the Chicago academic.

"The goal is for people to be able to protect their content, whether it's individual artists or companies with a lot of intellectual property," Zhao said.

Viva Voce

A startup called Spawning has developed Kudurru software that detects attempts to harvest large numbers of images from an online venue.

An artist can then block access or send images that don't match what is being requested, tainting the pool of data being used to teach AI what is what, according to Spawning co-founder Jordan Meyer.

More than 1,000 websites have been integrated into the Kudurru network.

Spawning has also launched haveibeentrained.com, a website that features an online tool for finding out whether digitized works have been fed into an AI model and allow artists to opt out of such use in the future.

As defenses ramp up for images, researchers at Washington University in Missouri have developed AntiFake software to thwart AI copying voices.

AntiFake enriches digital recordings of people speaking, adding noises inaudible to people but which make it "impossible to synthesize a human voice," said Zhiyuan Yu, the Ph.D. student behind the project.

The program aims to go beyond just stopping unauthorized training of AI to preventing the creation of "deepfakes" bogus soundtracks or videos of celebrities, politicians, relatives, or others showing them doing or saying something they didn't.

A popular podcast recently reached out to the AntiFake team for help stopping its productions from being hijacked, according to Zhiyuan Yu.

The freely available software has so far been used for recordings of people speaking, but could also be applied to songs, the researcher said.

"The best solution would be a world in which all data used for AI is subject to consent and payment," Meyer contended. "We hope to push developers in this direction."

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These computer science seniors defied tradition to win the first hackathon they ever entered – GeekWire

Members of the Seattle University hackathon team behind the project ResponseSight ML, which used historical traffic data to predict likely problem spots to strategically position emergency personnel. Clockwise from upper left: Benjamin Philipose, Willem Hueffed, Felix Pham, Cody Yee, Pierce Harriz, and Marc Brophy.

Once a staple of the startup world, the in-person hackathon was one of the collective habits that fell out of favor during the pandemic so much so that a group of six Seattle University computer science students made it nearly to the middle of their senior years without competing in one.

That changed the weekend of Dec. 2, when they joined 300 college students from the Seattle region at a hackathon hosted at Amazon by transportation analytics company INRIX, in partnership with Amazon Web Services.

The team from Seattle University used historical data about traffic, weather, and collisions in San Francisco to train a machine learning model that predicts likely accident hotspots in the city based on current conditions, producing a heat map to strategically position emergency personnel.

Their only prior hackathon experience came from one member of the team who had taken part in virtual hackathons. This was the first time any of them had ever come together in the real world to compete in a hackathon, as one of 20 teams turning their ideas into working prototypes over the course of 24 hours.

As a tech rite of passage, hackathons usually involve long hours, lots of caffeine, and not a lot of sleep.

But the Seattle University team took a different path. They stopped regularly for water breaks and short walks, getting outside the hackathon room, and getting to know each other. Some members of the team hadnt met before.

We were all really good at just taking breaks, maybe because we didnt have the experience before, or that stress of a hackathon before, said Felix Pham, one of the students on the team. We really set aside the time to enjoy each others company, outside of working with each other.

They were also resilient and flexible, two hallmarks of strong hackathon teams.

Their initial idea involved using camera data to help insurance companies place new cameras. However, about four hours into the event, they discovered they would not have access to the traffic camera API (application programming interface) that they had planned to use.

Undeterred, they pivoted to a new idea. They instead used a dangerous slowdowns API to help predict where accidents are more likely to occur under different conditions and at different times.

They used an AWS Lambda function to handle calls to the INRIX APIs. On the front-end, they built an interactive map using Vue.js to display predictions from the machine learning model. The model was trained using historical data in AWS SageMaker. The website was hosted via an AWS S3 bucket.

Perhaps most importantly, they got something resembling a decent nights sleep, after leaving the venue in the evening and wrapping up their work from home around midnight. That helped them stay sharp when they pitched their project that Sunday morning to the hackathon judges and then to the audience.

And they won the whole thing.

When we finished, we gave each other big hugs all around, said Marc Brophy, a computer science major with a minor in entrepreneurship, who was the one member of the team who had taken part in virtual hackathons before. We delivered a product, we pitched it really well, and it was just a great experience for all of us.

INRIX, based in Kirkland, Wash., holds an annual hackathon at Santa Clara University, but this was its first Seattle hackathon at Amazon.

The idea is to give students hands-on experience with location-based services data, and also to help INRIX identify prospective summer interns. Members of the winning team get to jump to the front of the line for a final internship interview, skipping the preliminary interviews normally associated with the selection process.

The event started with remarks from Ed Lazowska, of the University of Washingtons Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and INRIX CEO Bryan Mistele. Hackathon organizers challenged the students to use INRIX APIs to build a prototype reflecting the values of smarter, safer, and greener.

Many of the students were using APIs and AWS services for the first time. They received mentorship and coaching from INRIX and AWS employees as they turned their ideas into prototypes.

Each team was given five minutes to present to a panel of judges. The top six teams from that process pitched to the 300-person hackathon audience, with the Seattle University team emerging as the winner.

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Computing staff and faculty dispute cash-strapped public education and employment – Daily Californian

After attempts to increase staffing in UC Berkeley computing courses failed last semester, course staffers continue to report overwork and a diminished educational experience for their students.

In an effort to shoulder heightened instructional labor costs, associate teaching professor John DeNeros experiment with new staffing models in CS 61A which reduced reliance on undergraduate workers labor has been met with both criticism and applause.

Unlike other departments, computing courses are primarily staffed by these undergraduates, who often claim overwork and insufficient resources to meet campuss high teaching demand.

So in February, campus and UAW 2865, the local union that represents these course staffers, met at the bargaining table to negotiate a new compensation and hiring model for undergraduates staffing computing courses. Slated to last only two weeks, negotiations ended up lasting 14 weeks charges of unfair labor practice, pushes for mediation and pressure from elected officials to reach a deal.

Six months since their agreement was ratified May 22, course staff and facultys shared goal of ensuring access to computing courses has been muddied by allegations of contract violations and competing visions of how to best serve students on a tight teaching budget.

The agreement entitles uGSIs in EECS and DSUS, or computing uGSIs, to about $2,700 per month for 20-hour work weeks starting October 2023.

Computing uGSIs working eight, 10 and 12 hours per week receive 40%, 50% and 60% in-state tuition remission; those working more than 12 hours per week receive full remission.

In comparison, uGSIs outside EECS and DSUS earn at least $3,100 per month for 20-hour work weeks and receive full remission of in-state tuition.

Before the local agreement, uGSIs across campus departments all made about $2,500 per month for 20-hour work weeks. At EECS and DSUS, eight-hour uGSIs received 40% tuition remission, and non-computing uGSIs got full remission.

During negotiations, however, the campus bargaining team which included associate teaching professor John DeNero, teaching professor Ani Adhikari and associate teaching professor Josh Hug warned in order to maintain historic large course capacities, compensation may need to be reduced.

In a March video about staffing negotiations, DeNero said EECS and DSUS spent about $14 million on instruction in the 2022-23 academic year resulting in a $2.4 million deficit.

To help campus close the funding gap in computing instruction, head teaching assistant and former Daily Cal staffer Gabe Classon said computing uGSIs have agreed to reduce their tuition remissions since 2020 and reduce their wages in comparison to other campus uGSIs since the ratification of 2023 agreement.

Undergraduate ASEs, once again, sacrificed some of their rights in order to help the departments stay afloat, Classon said. Thats why, by and large, undergraduate ASEs agreed to (the local agreement).

To ward off a future deficit, DeNero estimated campus had to cut instructional costs by $3 million for this year, partially due, he said, to a decline in state support for the UC system. In 2001, the state government provided UC Berkeley with $23,811 per student in 2021 USD, adjusted for inflation by DeNero. In 2021, that support dropped to $7,857 per student.

During his lecture, DeNero said computing courses provide so much benefit to students and society that they should be kept open, despite cost constraints.

In their first post-graduate jobs, the median data science, computer science and EECS graduate in the class of 2022 earned $103,000, $130,000 and $129,000, respectively, according to survey data from Berkeley Career Engagement.

DeNero added that tuition remission should be provided regardless of position to everyone; but given cost constraints, it should go to those who need it most irrespective of employment.

I tried to explain this to the labor unions, and we couldn't agree, DeNero said in his Dec. 1 CS 61A lecture, 15 minutes of which he reserved to speak about instructional labor costs. At that point I was like, I'm just not going to try to fight with my own students anymore Instead, I'll change the course in order to try to keep everything large and open as much as I can.

So this semester in CS 61A, DeNero decided to experiment with a new instructional model one with far fewer instructors. The fall 2023 course has two lecture sections: one with professor Satish Rao and another with DeNero.

Raos section resembles previous offerings of CS 61A. He enrolled about 1,000 students. To help run the course, he hired two GSIs and 17 uGSIs.

DeNero enrolled 375 students, but he hired only two GSIs and one uGSI a drastic cut in instructor time.

I think the way that you're supported is different, but I don't think you're undersupported, said E Harrison, a first-year student in DeNeros offering of the course. If you do need to talk to someone and you have a question, you're able to talk to someone.

Before entering the course, Harrison took AP Computer Science A in high school and an introductory data science course at UCLA. In fact, he said he pretty much knew the content up to tree recursion, which was introduced in week four.

Though Harrison does not doubt that students new to computer science may struggle to learn with much less student instructor attention, he may represent a good chunk of students in his section.

Up until a week before the semester started, Raos section reserved 390 seats for undeclared majors. In DeNeros section, all seats were reserved for CS, EECS and other engineering majors.

In DeNeros CS 61A, there was no instructor in the room during course discussions. Rather, discussions consisted of small groups of six to eight students, who could ask course staffers questions over Discord.

Labs had an instructor in the room for the beginning of the section, according to the syllabus, but they would leave and return only periodically. DeNero also changed lectures; instead of rehashing content from existing videos, he walked students through examples and sometimes reviewed content from discussions.

The course, however, also came with many supplemental resources not offered in other computer science courses.

Students could review the courses repository of hundreds of instructional videos, guides and worksheets. They could pose questions to a GPT-4-powered chatbot, whose development was sponsored by Microsoft, and get an immediate response.

I think that it's just a different way of teaching, Harrison said. If you're familiar with the other way, it might be kind of a shock.

In the course's mid-semester survey, DeNeros students rated instructional support 4.01 out of 5, even with their reduced course staff. Raos more conventional offering of the course got a rating of 3.72 from students.

In DeNeros section, 59% of students reported attending at least three-quarters of the lectures, compared to 50% of Raos students. However, Raos students rated discussions 3.98 out of 5 a bump up from DeNeros students 3.5 rating.

But according to preliminary results of the courses end-of-semester survey, DeNero said in an email that students who regularly attended his sections discussions were quite a bit happier about taking the course than those who regularly attended discussions with instructors in the room.

I think what weve seen is that this is not a total failure, and it does sort of change the possibility of keeping the course open, even under times of funding problems, DeNero said during the lecture, prompting a round of applause from students in the lecture hall. So I think in spring 2024, I'll try to scale it up.

This spring, there will be only one offering of CS 61A, and DeNero will teach it, according to the Berkeley Academic Guide.

While DeNeros spring 2024 offering of CS 61A is currently capped at 1,000 students, hiring is ongoing, so it is unclear how many or how few student instructors will staff the course. In an email, DeNero said he plans to allocate instructor time more to student-facing services and less to revising curricula, developing course software or carrying out administrative tasks.

Differentiated instruction that provides the right kind of support to each student is generally a good idea, DeNero said in an email. We'll keep trying to achieve that under the constraints imposed by limited financial support from the state and the ASE labor contract.

Since DeNeros experiments in CS 61A may reduce the role of academic workers in future offerings of the course, Classon said ASEs are surely concerned.

However, he believes in ASEs ability to stand against problematic behaviors which include slashing instructional staffing in courses.

ASEs are smart, said Classon, who was told by DeNero that he was unlikely to get a position in his spring 2024 offering of the course. And we know the department cant operate without us.

Classon was offered a position in CS 170, but it was for fewer hours than he preferred.

DeNeros offering of CS 61A is also just an experiment, separate from the many computing courses where instructional standards remain much the same as always.

Despite increases in labor costs, the student instructor time-to-enrollment ratio across fall 2023 computing courses resembles that of fall 2022, according to an analysis of data from UAW 2865, DeNero and the CalAnswers database by The Daily Californian. The ratio is the weekly number of minutes GSIs and uGSIs work per enrollment in EECS and DSUS courses.

Per week in fall 2022, EECS and DSUS student instructors worked about 17 minutes and 50 seconds per enrollment. In fall 2023, the weekly instructor time-to-enrollment ratio dropped just 9% to 16 minutes and 25 seconds.

Our ongoing analysis of GSI and uGSI time-to-enrollment ratios in EECS and DSUS courses is integral to ensuring appropriate instructional support, said campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore. While the instructional labor cost has increased, we continue to evaluate data to strike a balance between effective course support and cost efficiency.

But for some people, maintaining existing instructor time-to-enrollment ratios is just a continuation of an unfortunate status quo in UC Berkeleys computing education one where student instructors overwork themselves to get students the help they need.

Noemi Chulo, an undergraduate now in their second semester as a computing uGSI, is supposed to work eight hours per week in CS 195 and CS H195, both CS ethics courses. Nevertheless, they reported working at least 10 hours per week and on some weeks, up to 15 hours.

Whatever we have going on right now is not working, Chulo said about computing staffing on campus. Its just not feasible; the longer this goes on, the longer this falls apart.

To save on time, Chulo built an automated bot which flags and responds to students who have improperly formatted their assignments on the courses online forum.

Across computing courses, staff have automated the grading of many programming assignments, attendance, surveys, short-term extension requests and more. But automation, Chulo added, hasnt been enough to prevent overwork.

In the hours Chulo works, and in those they overwork, they said they choose between essential tasks: grading papers, responding to students questions or reviewing extension requests. Chulo added they do not have time to do things they would like to do such as providing more feedback to students in their honors section and reaching out to students who are falling behind.

The point is that understaffing is kind of everywhere, Chulo said. It's not really avoidable.

Classon said that in large computing courses such as Data 8 and CS 61A students sometimes wait hours in office hours queues and are not given adequate support.

Often in office hours, he said, course staffers must choose between staying longer with a student who is struggling, or moving onto the dozens of other students waiting in the queue.

That's a choice that I've had to make, Classon said. It breaks your heart every single time.

Since the ratification of the local agreement, the local union has also filed grievances against the university for alleged failure to fully implement student workers labor contracts.

About 230 of fall 2023s approximately 390 undergraduate and graduate computing ASEs signed a letter dated Nov. 14 to campus deans Jennifer Chayes and Tsu-Jae King Liu. The letter called for the campus to resolve outstanding grievances, remit allegedly shorted compensation and increase instructional funding.

The letter also alleged summer instructors paychecks were unduly cut $600. These instructors have yet to see their wages remitted, Classon alleged. Many campus employees, Classon alleged, also saw improper deductions to their compensation in May due to a payroll error. His own paycheck was 10% lower than expected that month because of the error. While those deductions have been remitted, he alleged workers are owed damages they have yet to see.

Gilmore said campus is committed to addressing UAW 2865 representees concerns and resolving related grievances.

Moreover, on Nov. 21, Classon said he and other computing ASEs were invited to a Dec. 4 meeting with several campus representatives including vice provost Oliver OReilly and chief HR officer Eugene Whitlock to discuss their letter and the concerns it shared.

There are many outstanding issues in EECS and data science, Classon said. But we really appreciate every opportunity to collaborate with the university in improving instructional and working conditions.

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Longwood’s hackathon is helping grow interest in computer science on Long Island – Greater Long Island

This Long Island school is helping the next wave of students get into computer science.

Longwood High School on Tuesday hosted its third annual hackathon, a beginner coding competition aimed at getting more students involved in the STEM program.

Steve Beecher, a math and computer science teacher at Longwood, said the goal is simple: We want to have students get that spark and fall in love with computer science.

The event, which drew around 200 students, teaches students how to write code using a programming language called Scratch.

After the students have learned the basics of programming, we break them up into teams of two, and they attempt to write 15 to 20 computer programs for the rest of the day, said Beecher.

The students can then win prizes, all donated by local businesses in the area.

This year, the Longwood Hackathon invited other school districts on the island to participate, with Comsewogue High School sending 10 students.

Alumni come to help judge, and the high school paper covers the event.

Its important for more students to get involved in computer science, said Beecher. Nearly everything you do is computer science or computer-based. Theres jobs and not enough qualified workers.

Since launching the hackathon, Beecher mentioned that it has helped grow the computer science program at Longwood, with student retention now 8% higher than before the program started. With the increased interest, the computer science program will transition from a half-year class to a full-year class next school year.

Top: Photo of the 2022 Longwood Hackathon. (Courtesy)

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Save $64 on this Python Certification Bundle and make your coding dreams come true – Boing Boing

5:00 pm Sat, Dec 23, 2023

TL;DR:Master Python and pass the PCEP exam on the first try with the2023 Complete Python Certification Boot Camp Bundlefor only $19.99 (Reg. $84) until 11:59 PM on 12/25. It also makes a great last-minute gift for anyone on your list interested in getting into coding.

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Prices subject to change.

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‘Gizmo’ gives South Texas ISD students head start in the world of AI robotics – Brownsville Herald

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EDINBURG Always drawing the center of attention wherever he goes, Gizmo, an AI robot dog, is helping students learn hands-on skills for the growing world of technology.

About the size, weight and cuteness of a beagle, Gizmo is a Unitree Go1 Pro AI Quadruped Robot Dog bought by South Texas ISD for the purpose of teaching programming as part of student computer science courses at Science Academy and World Scholars high schools.

STISD World Scholars is also using the robot dog in their law enforcement courses to show students how AI technology and robotics are being introduced in police departments across the country such as in Los Angeles and New York City.

Ernesto Gonzalez, Computer Science teacher at World Scholars, said students voted on the name and that Gizmo has become a favorite around the high school, walking up and down the hallways as it introduces itself to students in other classrooms.

Gonzalez said the high school received the robot dog in October and the district also paid for an educational curriculum that comes with Gizmo.

Gizmo cost $32,000 for the district, according to STISD Administrator for Public Relations & Marketing Amanda Odom and came from the Yield Giving Foundation established by Mackenzie Scott.

The robot dog has advanced AI that can accompany people on walks, carry and bring items, climb stairs and even stays balanced on his bionic four legs when pushed. Gonzalez said he showcased Gizmos different modes at a pep rally and the students booed when he tried to push the robotic dog down.

Operated by a remote controller, it is similar to a Nintendo Switch with joysticks to maneuver, sets of buttons to give certain commands, and to be able to see what Gizmo is looking at and scanning.

This semester, students have been mostly studying Gizmo and how he works, his capabilities and what could be possible for the robot dog through additional programming.

We ran it across the parking lot to see how far it would go, to see how fast they would go, he said. We were using the curriculum that it came with to do those kinds of studies on it. So we made the students measure distance over time and they were calculating speed and then force and all that stuff.

Gizmo has cameras on its front, sides, back, top and bottom. Having cameras all around his little robotic dog body, anyone operating it can be able to view exactly what Gizmo sees.

Gonzalez also mentioned a mode where Gizmo scans out a detailed map of his surroundings and can recognize humans through his cameras. That information is relayed back to the remote controller to view.

Gonzalez said next semester students will start to implement more high-level coding to Gizmo which will program the robot dog different moves and modes.

I hope we can build from it really, he said. All of this is like a stepping stone with anything they can do with a computer.

World Scholars Law Enforcement teacher Denise Davila is also finding a way to implement Gizmo in her classes.

Gizmo will assist students in building clearing and how law enforcement are using AI and robotics in real life situations.

So what were going to incorporate is using Gizmo to send him into the unknown and scoping it out so that way students can formulate a plan and know the layout of a room, Davila said.

She said students are enjoying seeing the end results of their coding being implemented into Gizmo and that it sets them up for the future of the world of technology that is increasingly using AI and robotics.

Theyre like super duper ecstatic about Gizmo because theyll walk him and theyll be, say like, Oh, look, I had him do this. I coded him to do this and coding is not easy, so being able to do that and seeing it being applied, they get a big kick from that.

Gonzalez said the students curiosity for Gizmo and programming has been a special thing to see and will translate when they step into the future workforce.

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Computer vision system estimates speed of vehicles driving on the same road in real-time – Tech Xplore

This article has been reviewed according to ScienceX's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

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Engineers of ICAI Group of the School of Computer Science of the University of Malaga have developed a computer vision system that estimates the speed of vehicles driving on the same road in real-time.

It is an innovative algorithm, which adds accessibility, because it is integrated into a single camera with the onboard computer systems of automobiles, activating warnings every time another vehicle approaches dangerously.

Likewise, the system designed at the UMA estimates the speed of several vehicles simultaneously and, consisting of a single sensor, is integrated in an easier and cost-effective way.

The results of this work, carried out in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum Fur Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR), have been published in the journal Neurocomputing.

Ezequiel Lpez-Rubio, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Programming Languages, and one of the authors of this paper, points out that improving vehicle safety is the ultimate goal of this research, which is part of a larger project on traffic video surveillance. Thus, autonomous driving and driver assistance are other possible applications.

"Driving systems already existed for this purpose; the innovation of this work lies in the capacity to integrate it into a single camera, reducing complexity and costs and, furthermore, it does not require a calibration process," explains Lpez-Rubio.

Although so far it has not been integrated into any vehicle, reaching the business world is one of the medium- to long-term objectives of this scientific team that, currently, keeps working on improving the algorithm.

More information: Ivn Garca-Aguilar et al, Detection of dangerously approaching vehicles over onboard cameras by speed estimation from apparent size, Neurocomputing (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.neucom.2023.127057

Provided by University of Malaga

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Computer vision system estimates speed of vehicles driving on the same road in real-time - Tech Xplore

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Springfield students bring mythological creatures to life using block coding – New England Public Media

Milton Bradley Elementary School fifth grader, Cameron Chapman, excitedly flipped the switch on his project. His mythological creature, a kitsune, lit up and moved.

I picked this one because it reminded me of the nine-tailed fox from Naruto, Cameron said. It's a kitsune. It's a Japanese fox. It means fox in Japanese, too.

Cameron's group drew a fox head on paper, along with 9 tails, coloring them in vibrant reds, purples, and blues. Then, they used a coding kit to install purple lights for the eyes and to make two of the tails move.

It has these many tails because the older it gets, the more powerful it gets. When it gets to 10 tails itregenerates. The only way to kill it is by killing its tail. So it's almost immortal, Cameron said.

They used whats known as the Hummingbird coding kit to make the tails move and eyes light up. The technology is funded through a UMass grant that integrates computer science in the curriculum for Springfield, Massachusetts, students.

Led by teacher Erin Demarest, these Milton Bradley Elementary students put their block coding computer skills to the test by bringing to life mythological creatures they learned about in class. It was a three-month project.

I taught them how to set it up. They played around with it. When they were looking at their projects, they decided, OK, I think the tail should move. I think the eyes should light up and all that stuff, but I really didn't require any of that. I let them choose everything they wanted to do with it, Demarest said.

She worked closely with each team in her 18-student class and said one of their biggest challenges was figuring out what angle to position the moving parts at.

How far you want it to turn, everything like that. And it's all really just trial and error, Demarest said.

For example, student Layla Barnett and her group chose to do a hydra because it looked cool and it looked like a dragon, Layla said.

She said it was really difficult to get the two other hydra heads to move the way she wanted it to.

I feel like the head should have been in the back, but, well, it was still good, Layla said begrudgingly. It still looks good. It looks like the heads are floating, but it's fine.

At this point, the fifth grader shoots her teacher an annoyed look. As Demarest explained, she had to tinker with Laylas original concept.

Like Layla said, she wanted the heads behind it, but it kept knocking in and it was starting to destroy it. So I then made the executive decision and built them a little bit higher," Demarest said. "And we were very disappointed the next day. But she soon saw that we did it for a reason and just have to adjust our thinking sometimes.

Demarest said thats what she loves the most about computer science.

It gives them that chance to fail a little bit and then fix it. And they get to learn that mistakes are OK, Demarest said.

So when theyre out in the real world, they can think back on their project about mythological creatures and remember they can solve problems with just a little bit of perspective.

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Springfield students bring mythological creatures to life using block coding - New England Public Media

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