what a day....

oi... what a day.

today was the day for REU field trip #2 -- to IBM

telcordia did a really nice job last month, but it was a much more academic trip; IBM gave us a much more hands-on technology day today.

my away message earlier was:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
today i...
*got to see the world's fastest super computer
*got to play with the most enhanced gps system ever (it plays 'name that tune' with you if you're on long monotonous stretches of road :-P)
* got to find out first hand what happens when your bus trip driver tries to put an 11'5" bus under a 10' 3" bridge
... and many other exciting things
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

now, to explain... :-P

first off, we had to get there... all but two students (who slept through the day instead) were ready to go on time, as was the bus driver... since reu field trips (esp. the ones to IBM) have in the past involved bus drivers picking up students late, and getting lost, this was a really promising start to the day... even better, we arrived at the industry solutions lab at 9:45am, even though we weren't expected until 10. (better a little early and sitting in the lobby for 10 minutes than late and missing out!)

the industry solutions lab is where IBM showcases their newest technologies to clients.

our stops in the lab included
* store of the future -- using a computer and projector, and a motorized mirror, they showed us the many capabilities they've set up... you can project an image to a window, floor, whatever (and they've adjusted it to show up in focus on any surface) for advertising... you can also make "interactive" projections, where a consumer can "touch" different parts of the projected image and have different things pop up with more info... they aimed the whole rig at a couple shelves full of clothes which, when you remove an item, it pulls up a menu of related products on the wall for you, and it senses if you (a) place items on the wrong shelf and (b) keeps tracks of how many items are on each shelf... finally, the projector can be set to "entertain small annoying children while parents shop" mode... they have a game called "catch the frog" where it projects a frog and when you touch it, it moves elsewhere in the room... all very entertaining
* veggie vision -- while the grocery cashier at your local store might not always recognize your purchases, IBM has made software that does... using a webcam, veggie vision inputs your product and identifies it based on hue, saturation, shape etc... not only can this correctly identify produce no matter how you set it down, it can tell how brown it is, so stores could potentially sell based on how old a product is too... it was impressive
* wearable/portable technology -- as far as wearable, we got to try out an eyepiece that you can see your computer screen overlayed over what you're doing, and a biometric watch... apparently they're working on a cellphone where the speakers are in a pair of earrings and the mouthpiece is in a pendant necklace too -- crazy!... they're also working on a system where you have a computer unit not much bigger than the size of my hand that plugs into laptops, desktops, and a variety of smaller units so that regardless the interface and attachments you're working with, you can bring all your licensed software and files with you between machines... there were several other cool things at this station too, those are just some highlights
* telematics -- using technology with cars... the main application that they showed us was named sally (after "mustang sally") it included a microphone and set of speakers in your car... the computing unit sensed where the car was and gave directions... it recognized the user's voice and held a conversation with him on the "drive"... when he said he was going to the airport, sally checked for the flight status and the best route, updating the user as to changing traffic conditions/flight times as they changed... she found radio stations, and on monotonous stretches of imaginary road kept the driver occupied with "name that tune" amongst other things... lots of fun... they also displayed other tracking technologies that can be used by drivers or by someone who manages lots of vehicles... very cool
* they showed us their best new monitor -- large screen LCD which, when you hold a magnifying glass up to it, you don't see pixels, you see finer print!
* security demonstration -- they showed us one of their new computers where instead of logging in by typing, you log in by swiping your finger print... the demonstrator also showed us new "signiature recognition technology" that computes the percent chance that the person who wrote your name really was you... it said it was 98% sure that the speaker had written his own name, but when a student literally TRACED his signiature, it claimed that there was only a 0.0006% chance it was authentic, even though we couldn't tell the difference in person between the two signiatures!
* finally, we saw a display on grid computing and a few demos of how quickly networking servers together in that way speeds things up

all in all, a fascinating two hours

here comes the adventure part though...

the first site, like i said, was full of demos for visitors and potential clients... for lunch and the rest of the day, we had to head to another ibm site 10 miles north. this was not expected to be a problem in the least.

i questioned the driver when he got off at route 133 instead of route 134, but he had alternate directions that said that that should work... boy were we wrong.

the 10 minute trip turned out to be 10 minutes east rather than north and when route 133 ended with no sign of route 134, we got on a parkway we had been on earlier... turns out there are signs with "passenger cars only" at the parkway entrance for a reason...

when we stopped just shy of a bridge labelled 10'3", and the driver muttered "oh shit", and my "so i'm guessing we're a bit bigger than that" got an answer of "11'5"" and him hopping off the bus to chat with a police officer who had pulled up behind us, i knew we were in for quite more of a wait than even planned on.

a $75 ticket and meandering through really tiny local roads really hilly and dense with trees later, we finally made it (i'm glad i have absolutely no responsibility for the ticket)

the second IBM site was more top secret think tank-ish... it was an impressive building of research offices... since we were an hour late, we missed out on a speaker we would have had... the abbreviated afternoon schedule was something along the lines of:
* pizza (this is always very important)
* a talk on the genographic project, which is a joint venture of national geographic and IBM for the next 5 years... you can volunteer and purchase a participant kit and have your DNA tested to see where you fall in the general scheme of things. they only test the y chromosome in males (always inherited from your father) and the mitochondrial DNA in females (in both males and females this is always inherited only from your mother) and place you in a general people group with the same y-chromosome or mtDNA... using this data they can better study how different people groups have spread out and intermixed over time. it won't tell you your geneology, but it will put you in a general eons ago people group... it was a fascinating talk
* after that, we got a tour of Blue Gene -- the world's fastest supercomputer! there's a whole series of blue gene computers, and the link above there is from the original press release 4 years ago about them... the particular unit we saw is the worlds #1 fastest super computer, and the 2nd largest in the world in terms of memory... they told us a bit about it and then brought us in the large room where it lives to show us the hardware... it was hard to hear in that room because the a/c system to keep the hardware at a reasonable working temperature is sooooo loud!... the students got a kick out of the fact that for such an amazing record-setting machine, the monitor and keyboard attached to it in one corner of the room looked very early-90s, and were such a contrast to the rest of the machine... there's pictures here of the unit in CA (at the other american IBM site) of another blue gene machine (the only machine in the world more powerful than the one we saw)... the unit we saw looks just about identical to what you see here and filles a room probably twice the size of my bedroom here in jersey.
* finally, we heard a talk about IBM's summer research program and about the general kind of work that researchers do there with ample time for my REU students to ask the IBM HR people questions and advice.

it was a fantatsic day.

even if i'm just the organizational person, i get a lot out of the REU stuff too :-) after all, how many of YOU have met one of the world's top 2 most powerful supercomputers, or gotten to play with wearable computers that aren't on the market yet? it was a party and a half... and the bus adventure just adds to the storytelling value of the day :-P

but now, i'm exhuasted (and you're probably tired of reading anyhow), so that's a wrap

oh, p.s.

is this not a super cool earring?



jessica and i found these when i was in philly in june... we both got pairs then, but today was the first day i could wear them since my ears got pierced in may :-P
that was a random tangent.

night y'all :-P