Interview with TrendPOV

A few weeks ago I received an email from Dr. Amy Vanderbilt with an invitation to appear on the TrendPOV show and chat about Augmented Reality (AR). At that time I was not familiar with TrendPOV, and I learned that this is a one hour web streaming show about certain topics for businesses.

This sounded quite interesting, and so I agreed to participate in this. I prepared a CV and sent my picture. Then I decided that it would be good to update my website. Unfortunately, weeks passed by, and I still had not found the time to prepare a new version of my web presence. So on this Monday I finally began to set up a new Google Site for a new portal to my site(s). Not much time to put any content in, so I placed a link to my site at LeedsMet which contains the most relevant Augmented Reality work.

Then I prepared for the recording of the show, which would take place today, Wednesday, 26.October. I had taken the day off because of our friends from India were here on a visit, and I joined them for a few activities during the day. But then in the evening I went back to my office at LeedsMet and set up everything for the Skype session. I was supposed to call in at 6:50pm. There was still some time, so I some other work. Suddenly I noticed that the EDUROAM WIFI started to fail around 5:50pm. The signal dropped from 5 to 1 - what was going on? It looked as if an access point was powering down... So I tried to use another laptop computer which did have the credentials for the wired Ethernet. A pity, because this meant that I would not be able to use the built-in camera of the first laptop computer. When trying to setup the second laptop computer, I was not able to get the internet going. WIFI was out, and the Ethernet connection kept giving problems regarding the proxi server. I am sure that the credentials were correct - that all had worked fine a few months ago. But now it did not... and so I had to resort to the third option: using the office PC with its two monitors. I rarely use that PC, since most of my work is on the laptop(s). But at least there I got a reasonable internet connection. So the picture here with the four monitors does really not reflect technical sophistication, but actually shows the sad state of an emergency solution.

Then another problem: how to affix the camera on top of the monitor, so that I could look right into it and see the screen at the same time? This webcam did not have a suitable base, so I had to stick it with tape onto the top of the screen. It worked ok then, and I was ready for the show to begin.

I dialed in at 6:50pm. Had a video chat with Dr.Amy first. She was very enthusiastic about the Augmented Reality concepts and was really looking forward to this show. Then the show began. On the skype monitor I only saw a logo, but I heard the show then live, the music, and then Dr.Amy speaking. And then we talked about Augmented Reality for a whole hour. I gave my opinion and assessment about the AR technology. Unfortunately I got carried away and forgot to put a plug for the ongoing ISMAR conference in Basel, something that I actually had wanted to do. And when I talked about the LeedsMet project "Our City, Our Music", I forgot to mention the main proponents Ben Dalton and Megan Smith. But otherwise I think I got everything across.

It was a fun experience!

--- Update 3.November 2011: the video is now live online, see here on the TrendPOV site.

At one point during the recording a slight technical problem happened: in my LeedsMet office, the lights are dimming off, once they do not sense any motion in the room for a certain while. And since I did not move that much while speaking into the camera, the sensing switch-off kicked in a few minutes before the first commercial break, and then the lights dimmed away, and it got quite dark. Fortunately I did have another non-dimming lamp on, which kept my face illuminated, and so I just kept talking as if nothing had happened. Then during the next break I did bring the lights back by getting up, and from then on they stayed on fine until the end.

Car Insurance - Get Comprehensive!

My annual car insurance premium was due recently. Premiums were rising, so despite me not having any claims, I would have to pay more.

As every year, I did a search using the comparison web site GoCompare. In the past years, I did have good experiences with them, and I always found the best price through them. I did also contact some insurances directly which were not among their offerings, but I very often found that those insurances were still more expensive than the cheapest listed in GoCompare, except once when my renewal and staying with the same insurance was the cheapest option.

I again tried GoCompare, because in an experiment two years ago, I concluded that they did offer the best capture of my data, relevant to my situation as a non-UK driver with EU license. The other competitor comparison sites did have some trouble with that. And now I am also too lazy to try those out again - takes a lot of time to enter all the data, and GoCompare already has them stored from my last years of searching.

Of course, if I would base my choice on the commercials which these comparison sites run, then I would definitely take Compare The Meerkat, aeh, I mean Compare the Market - these commercials are really good and not as annoying as the singing tenor or the confused cartoon lady.

When I tried this year to get a car renewal quote for the insurance with the least features (just 3rd party), I got only quotes which were the same or more expensive than what I already had. Disappointing. For fun I selected then "comprehensive" - and the quote was about £ 200 cheaper! This is quite surprising, that an insurance which would provide more cover, would cost less. Has probably to do with the average comprehensive client, who drives maybe more carefully.

The same was confirmed for another renewal - saving £ 150 then. So it appears to be well worth choosing a comprehensive insurance, if you want to save money on the insurance fee.

If you do not like to go through comparison web sites, then you may try directly with SwiftCover - in both cases they were the ones with the lowest premium (naturally, they try to sell additional items on the insurance, but these can be unchecked). They operate mostly web based, so no postal mail is sent - better back up your data and the policy then! But this approach appears to make them quite efficient. Of course I had no opportunity yet to test how they are when a claim should be filed... but I hope that I will not need to do this anytime soon.

A busy day

I knew it that 45 minutes is just simply too short for a transfer between two flights at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. This is how much time I had between the official landing time and the departure time of my connecting flight.My flight from Leeds had arrived on time, I was the very first one out of the bus, moving quickly into the terminal building. By the time I was in the queue for entering the Schengen zone, only 40 minutes were left until the next flight would continue. And there was this veeeery long queue of visitors from China, which did not seem to move at all, and I had to place myself at the very end of this queue. There was a special line for "short connections", but this was closed between 12:00 and 16:30. Fortunately someone shouted "European Passports", and a new line opened, which I joined and which was very short then. Lucky, but the border control police officers seemed to have their training day today: very young officers looked very long at each passport and asked very detailed questions.

And the day had started so promising: first a few things done in the office, then driving with Gerhard to the Old Broadcasting House to the monthly Open Coffee meeting at 10:00. Then driving back to Headingley again, to give my lecture at 11:00. Before that, ordering the taxi and arranging for car parking. After the lecture, the taxi came in time and brought me to the airport, 1 1/2 hours before departure. Plenty of time, as the Leeds Bradford airport was quite empty around noon. The only inconvenience was that the taxi let me off 200 m before the airport, because otherwise additional £ would have to be paid: there is no more free passenger drop at Leeds Bradford airport. Greedy people! Now taxis stop before the airport, passengers walk along the road, and I saw several groups who waited for a pick-up from friends along the street outside. I can predict what soon there will be: any kind of stopping in the vicinity of 1000 m around the airport will be made illegal. Then it may really be better to fly from Manchester airport.

When boarding in Leeds, I was told that I had to change the seat - it was faulty. Ok, so I got a nice wide legroom space in the emergency exit row - which usually costs extra. Had my window seat, and dozed off a little after munching the savory snack. Arrived on time in Amsterdam.

And now in that Schengen queue, where I was inching slowly forward. Behind me a guy from York who was on my flight and also had to catch another flight. Finally my turn, after the officer carefully checks my boarding pass and the passport, I can go through. Now only the x-ray procedure, then I am clear and have entered Europe. The boards show my flight is already boarding - and the signs indicate a 24 minute walk from here to gate B26! I start running now. The Amsterdam airport is very big. I use the moving walkways wherever possible and walk fast on them; on the regular hallways I just run, pulling my rolling carry-on behind me. Reach the gate - no passengers are there anymore, but I am still in time. Go down the stairs, and am the last one on the bus. After I enter, the doors close and it drives to the tarmac where the next Cityhopper is waiting.

After that little exercise I can relax in the plane on the short flight to Luxembourg. Arrive in time. Weather is warmer than in Leeds, still some remnants of the weekend heat wave. At the hotel, they cannot find my reservation. But it does not matter, because they still have a room.

Then I take a bus towards the town. With me on the bus is another participant of tomorrow's meeting, whom I already knew from a few years ago - nice to see him here already. I get off at the Philharmonie Luxembourg in Kirchberg. Pick up my ticket, have a sandwich snack for dinner, then enjoy a marvelous concert: "Terezín / Theresienstadt". Anne Sofie von Otter sings songs which were composed and played by inmates of the concentration camp Theresienstadt. Very moving.

Back to the hotel, preparing for the weekly online chat with students at California Lutheran University (in California obviously) which is from midnight until 0:45.

Yes, this was quite a busy day. But overall very enjoyable. Tomorrow is the FP7 Call 8 Info Day. Will be again quite busy.

Improvements at Blogger

For quite a while, Blogger (owned by Google) had not introduced any improvements to its blogging system. But a few months ago, a new interface was offered, and I switched to it. Very positive experience, I can confirm. The interface looks very nice and clean, all relevant items are well accessible - it is real fun to work with this. There are many improvements in details regarding the editing and publishing blog posts, compared to the previous interface.

Here is how the main interface portal looks for my blogs:

With this interface it is quite a pleasure to manage my blog universe.

Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles - Talk at AGI 2011 by E.D.Dickmanns

From 1990 - 1996 I worked with Prof. E.D.Dickmanns in Munich at the UniBW on developing a computer vision system for autonomous road vehicles. This was a great experience, and I also got my PhD degree from that work. It was therefore a delight to see a recent presentation given by my "doctor father" (that is how we call our PhD supervisors in Germany) about his work in computer vision based autonomous vehicles. I remember taking part in these technical demonstrations, for example the PROMETHEUS presentation in 1994 near Paris, and the road trip from Munich to Odense (Denmark) with my colleague Markus Maurer (now Professor at Uni Braunschweig). When the autonomous vehicle (a nice Mercedes 500 SEL) went with 180 km/h (110 mph) on the Autobahn near Lueneburg, we were quite a bit tense, hoping that the car would not suddenly decide to swerve to the side...

Here is Prof Dickmanns' talk, given at the recent http://agi-conf.org/2011/:

Powerpoint 2010 - Bad Narration Quality

For a few weeks I have been using the "record narration" feature in Powerpoint. Never needed this before, because I was always speaking live when giving a presentation. But now with the advent of true online distance teaching, this feature becomes handy. But unfortunately, in Powerpoint 2010, this feature is not really usable. I can record the narration ok, but the sound quality is appalling. It sounds as if recorded with 8 bit, at 11 kHz, and results in absolutely unprofessional recording. In addition, the audio appears not to be compressed, but raw wave, judging from the file size increase which is caused by this. And there is no way of setting the quality, the coded, the bitrate, the compression or any relevant parameter. After searching the web for a solution, this problem is know. Apparently, Powerpoint 2007 did provide means for changing the sound quality through a panel with options. This was taken out in the 2010 version. Is this progress?

Low-Cost Airlines Price-Cheating

Low-cost airlines are a nice thing: they give us cheap and no-frills travel, compared to traditional airlines. But recently, they are resorting to unfair practices in their pricing, showing false low base prices, then add on additional costs which cannot be avoided. This is plain cheating, and the European Union is already considering action against this and will outlaw this practise, as seen on 13.May in the Telegraph newspaper.

But this practise is still going on, as my recent purchase of a Jet2.com plane ticket shows: base price is £15.96. Then comes a taxes and charges fee of £109.00. Steep. Sure, the other regular airlines also do this, and their price also often is more than 50% tax and "charges". But then there is an additional charge for the baggage of £49.96. Then a £20 fee for checking-in online. So what if I would not check in? I would not be allowed to fly. So why is this fee put separately, instead of being included in the mandatory base price? That base price is pure fiction, is just there in order to look good (low) and to attract customers. And it is illegal, to lie to customers about the price of a product, as blatantly as Jet2.com does this here. There are still more fees: £7.00 for fuel supplement. Why is this not in the "taxes and charges" included? Payment card fee for £7.53. Maybe they want me to pay with cash? And then the final insult: a booking fee of £7.27. This fee is for the convenience of booking the flight. Maybe the next fee would be a luggage drop fee, for allowing to bring your baggage to the flight check-in desk. Or a gate-transfer fee, for the convenience of being brought by bus from the gate to the plane. Or...

Here is the screenshot of the fees from my web booking, in case anyone thinks I made this up:

Refreshing the Design of this Blog

It has been a while since I have posted on my blog. In the past 6 months I have posted more on Facebook, and also have tried out Google+. This led to a decline of my blog and Twitter activities.

Now I have chosen a new design for this blog. Also properly equipped with all the social networking buttons under each post. The people at Blogger have done a good job in the last year and have added many new features, such as these buttons, and also making new designs. Also there is now a feature in the template which allows to automatically format this blog content for mobile phones - this is very useful.

The app "BlogSpace"

This is my first post to this blog using a little app on the iPhone called BlogSpace. It gives me an overview of my various blogs on Blogger.com, and let's me post to each one. Seems to work fine so far. One slight negative issue is that the title field is difficult to click on - it is very close to the top, and one can easily hit the cancel button instead, when trying to enter a blog title.

The Movie "BRAZIL" - My Review

This film came out in 1985. At that time I watched a review of it in one of our German TV culture programs, but I did not pay much attention and did not watch it in the cinema.

I did not see the film until sometime in the 1990s, I think it was on German TV, in a dubbed version. And I was immediately fascinated by this movie’s emotional approach to the very important topic of life in a totalitarian society. Since then I had the opportunity to see the film a few times on the big screen, and everytime I see it I discover new details. The most recent viewing was on Saturday, 26.March, here in Leeds at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds, and it compelled me to write a review about it which I want to share with you.

You may find info about this film at the IMDB site of BRAZIL, where there is an outline of the plot and many other reviews (I also submitted a short version of this review). So I will not go into details but rather give my own impression and my interpretation of some of its content.

The movie is absolutely hilarious, pointing out with the means of irony, satire, and parody the flaws of totalitarian societies. But these flaws are actually also the flaws of our own society, and this movie reveals this brilliantly. Besides the overall theme of a fictional retro-future all-encompassing dictatorship, the movie has several layers of topics that are very relevant to our current society. I would like to list these topics here:


Work environment

The satire with regards to the aspects of working life is so heartwarming because we all have most likely encountered in our own work life some of the pathetic specimens that are depicted in this movie.

There is the incompetent and cowardly boss Mr Kurtzman, who is unable to take responsibility for anything and delegates everything to his smart subordinate Sam Lowry. He even makes him falsify his own signature, which is one of the items for which Sam will later be held responsible.

There is the false sense of actionism and energetic work ethics in the Ministry of Information Retrieval, when the supervisor runs through the halls, followed by a crowd of subservient subordinates who are requesting decisions which are swiftly given by the superior.

Hilarious are the dire working conditions (dark narrow office) in the Ministry of Information Retrieval which are in much contrast to this energetic positive work attitude.

Very funny is the petty competition of fellow coworkers. For example when the neighbour of Sam Lowry pulls the shared desk towards his own side. Or when he tries to show off with his (non-existent) computer skills.

Then there is the way how office workers find a way around the rules and regulations to make their work life more bearable, in this case by watching a classic movie channel. In our own world this is replaced by web browsing.


Totalitarian Government

"We in the West" live in democracies, but much of the double speak that is shown in the film has slowly penetrated our own political life, by our own corrupted political classes, and we are often not anymore aware of it.

The cruel and impartial attitude of the security forces who make prisoners and put them into these sacks - which evoke the images of hooded prisoners in Abu Ghraib. These security forces are "normal" people, chat about the misery of work such as headache from helmets, but then treat their subjects that they took into custody with uncompassionate harshness, and all is done strictly according to procedures and regulations.

The government’s pursuit of suspected terrorists and the efforts in uncovering the hidden connections between them, which lead to paranoia and to suspicion of connections where there are none. The example is the pursuit of the freelancer Archibald Tuttle, who just wants to work as a heating engineer, because he enjoys it, but who does not want to comply with the tight rules and regulations of that trade. We see currently the same by linking every terrorist act to the omnipresent "Al Quaida" network, even if the links are unproven (the war in Iraq comes to mind ...). Also the phrase "9/11 changed everything" shows how much of this movie has already become reality.

The emptiness of the slogans, expressed in public announcements and also in the posters that are hanging everywhere, shows the paranoia, feeds the public fear of terrorists and justifies the state actions. (I wish there would be somewhere a collection of these posters that are in the movie in the background in so many scenes ...)

The refusal of state authority to admit that an error has been made, is so true also in our current "system". The heartlessness and lack of compassion by the same authority when they realise that an error has been made. The overall long winded process of appeal when such a mistake it tried to be rectified by a citizen. And the labelling of such a citizen then as a potential terrorist.


General society

The obsession with youth and cosmetic surgery, represented by Sam Lowry’s mother’s plastic surgery and her desire to look young. The parody of cosmetic surgery peaks twice: in once instance the person with whom the cosmetic surgery went terribly wrong, dies. In the other instance, in the end Sam’s mother looks like the love interest of the protagonist in an Oedipean twist, although only in the mind of Sam.

The emphasis on cleanliness in the streets, where passers-by are upset when a few papers are dropped on the streets, but where nobody appears to protest against the dirty war against the presumed terrorist thread.

The celebration of Christmas which has lost all its inner spiritual meaning and is hollowed into simple formality of giving thoughtless interchangeable arbitrary thoughtless presents, all done in the same packaging.

The consumer society which has eaten up all that was once in spiritual meaning ("Consumers for Christ") and which encompasses all the life of people. Shopping, expensive goods, and even when a bombing occurs, the show must go on (in the restaurant). But the true essence of enjoyment is lost: food is just a pile of coloured mash and can only be identified by a picture that comes with it.

There are two types of overall attitude which make a totalitarian system function and keep the protagonists alive: one attitude is represented by the silence and under-the-radar-screen-operating main character, Sam Lowry, whose main concern is that he might accidentally get noticed, which he tries to avoid by all means. The other attitude is represented by the ambition and suppression of the conscience by Jack Lint, who is actively supporting the system and is one of its representatives, in executing torture.

This society appears to show a blind faith in technology and in its believe that it works and solves everything – demonstrated to be not the case, as a simple bug can cause a terrible deadly error, and as the technological gadgets appear to malfunction at any opportunity.

The complex technology of climate control for individual housing which is difficult to handle. Overall there are many hoses and wires, in the houses, in the restaurant, during the cleaning process of the administration building. Everything is wired, is connected, and hoses go everywhere.

The annoying dealing with the monopolised services of Central Services. Everybody in our own world and time has had to deal with such non-responsive entities (BT comes to my mind). Free and independent enterprise (as personified by Tuttle) is illegal.

The overabundance of bureaucracy as it stifles all functioning of a society. The overall formalisation of all transactions with receipts and receipts for receipts, the rules and regulations that govern everything. (Reminds me somehow of "health and safety", and of the quality assurance formalisms that have in recent years stifled much of the creativity in UK.) The strict adherence to these rules appear to give even the cruellest government action a coat of legitimacy, because it is all done exactly according to the rules.

The loss of natural environment, as a consequence of providing energy and power and of overpopulation in densely urban cities. There appears to be no park, no trees, no green area. People live in dense highriser blocks without any daylight. Roads outside of the city lead to power plants, through deserted polluted landscapes, which the driver cannot see, because big billboards show advertisement and government slogans, depicting among other things landscape and blue sky, which is no longer in existence in the real world.

The desensitation and cruelisation of children: they grow up in dire housing complexes, mirroring the worst of "council estates", and they play war games with weapons. For Christmas they get guns as presents, and they play out security force and prisoners, with realistically hooding their prisoners as the adult world is doing it. This desensitation is also a reality in our real world, by the proliferation of ego-shooter computer games.


Filmographic

This movie also pays homage to classic movies, as they appear to be the only thing that brings real joy to people, but also that they act as an escapism for the unbearable reality of the present life. Very funny the reference to Eisenstein’s "Battleship Potemkin" in the scene where the security forces walk down the stairs, and a lonely cleaning equipment cart rolls down these stairs (instead of a stroller like in the original). Also at one point there is a parallel in the action of the movie to the film that the office workers are watching ("Casablanca"), when Jonathan Price says to his boss "here is looking at you".




Overall this movie is addressing all the above topics not on a rational level, but on a deeply emotional one. The main protagonist has his dreams, and in a very illogical way these dreams meddle with the reality, as he suddenly sees and meets the woman of his dreams.

This film is an emotional appeal for humanity, to do everything to prevent such a society from becoming a reality. Because once it is established, there is nothing that can bring it down – as the very pessimistic ending of the film implies (evil always wins).



Some of my favorite quotes from this movie:

"My complication got a little complication."
"Do you have a form 27 6-B?"
"This phone call is not being recorded."