Uber self-driving SUV fatal accident – a Computer Scientist’s views

20180324 update: For now, I’ve found these two posts by Brad Templeton to be very insightful and cover some of the issues that I want to write about but Brad wrote in much more detail! Have a read, 03/20 “New facts and questions on Uber robocar fatality” & 03/21 “It certainly looks bad for Uber“. I may still add more if I see more facts of the case especially when Uber starts to voluntarily (or be compelled to) provide more of its internal technical data. I hope Uber won’t try to brush this fatality under the carpet. Will see.

***

I just read some news reports and watched the video of the Uber self-driving SUV fatal accident. (WARNING: Video contains disturbing images. Viewer discretion is advised.) I know I do not have full information yet so I hope to share my views (for now, semi-technical/semi-informed) on this Uber self-driving fatal accident as best as I can. And in the coming days when I have time, I hope to keep updating this post when more technical and police investigative information are available.

A bit of background first. In 2013 February (more than 5 years ago now), I was already interested in driverless technologies and already interviewed U of T Professor Emeritus C.C. Kelly Gotlieb, “Father of Computing in Canada”, to talk about many topics including Google driverless car and issues like whose to blame when an accident happened? Sadly, we now have a fatal accident on hand to talk about.

From the AP report “Experts: Uber self-driving system should have spotted woman”, this Uber self-driving SUV is using LIDAR laser sensors technology to “see”. (note: LIDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging and it “measures distance to a target by illuminating the target with pulsed laser light” which can see perfectly well even in total darkness as it uses laser.) I made this observation re LIDAR in direct response to this sentence of the news report, “The lights on the SUV didn’t illuminate 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg on Sunday night until a second or two before impact, raising questions about whether the vehicle could have stopped in time.” And the fact the Uber safety driver was NOT paying attention to the road when he killed the 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg!

Let me quote from the AP report “Experts: Uber self-driving system should have spotted woman”,

““The victim did not come out of nowhere. She’s moving on a dark road, but it’s an open road, so Lidar (laser) and radar should have detected and classified her” as a human, said Bryant Walker Smith, a University of South Carolina law professor who studies autonomous vehicles.

Smith said the video may not show the complete picture, but “this is strongly suggestive of multiple failures of Uber and its system, its automated system, and its safety driver.”

Sam Abuelsmaid, an analyst for Navigant Research who also follows autonomous vehicles, said laser and radar systems can see in the dark much better than humans or cameras and that Herzberg was well within the range.

“It absolutely should have been able to pick her up,” he said. “From what I see in the video it sure looks like the car is at fault, not the pedestrian.”

Smith said that from what he observed on the video, the Uber driver appears to be relying too much on the self-driving system by not looking up at the road.

“The safety driver is clearly relying on the fact that the car is driving itself. It’s the old adage that if everyone is responsible no one is responsible,” Smith said. “This is everything gone wrong that these systems, if responsibly implemented, are supposed to prevent.”

The experts were unsure if the test vehicle was equipped with a video monitor that the backup driver may have been viewing.

Uber immediately suspended all road-testing of such autos in the Phoenix area, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. The National Transportation Safety Board, which makes recommendations for preventing crashes, is investigating the crash.”

I will try to come back to this article and add more details and updates in the coming days when I have more time. Will see.

For now, here is the particular segment of my 5 years old 2013 interview with Prof. Gotlieb talking about “Google [and by extension, any other company’s] Driverless Car gets into an accident, whose to blame? And who can you sue? The person who wrote the program? Google who authorize the car? Car manufacture? The person who is in the car? Or all of the above? […] Lots of questions to be asked when failure happen.”

xxx

Cybersecurity of Voting Machines

Dr. Matt Blaze’s House testimony on the security of voting machines.

#VotingMachines #eVoting It worries me that some form of e-voting was used in last Calgary municipal elections and more are being studied to be potentially used in the future. (Case of I don’t know enough.) As someone who has been following e-voting and development of secure voting machines for decades (a company I used to work for had a team that develop e-voting system), I have my serious reservations with e-voting and voting machines and want all levels of Canadian governments (city, provincial, federal) to study slow and proceed very very very carefully!

To learn more, I’m watching UPenn’s Dr. Matt Blaze‘s House testimony on the security of voting machines.

Cybersecurity of Voting Machines (26m45s)

More of Dr. Blaze‘s testimonies here at these timecodes: 35m30s ; 54m19s ; 1h5m56s ; 1h30m30s ; 1h44m02s ; 1h48m25s and following individually video links to specific timecode segments.

Meet Geoffrey Hinton, U of T’s Godfather of Deep Learning

//Meet Geoffrey Hinton: U of T Professor Emeritus of computer science, an Engineering Fellow at Google, and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

In this interview with U of T News, Prof. Hinton discusses his career, the field of artificial intelligence and the importance of funding curiosity-driven scientific research.//

Proud to be a UT computer science grad. Wish I had taken a class from Prof. Hinton.

Meet Geoffrey Hinton, U of T’s Godfather of Deep Learning

This video of “Panel of Pioneers” at RE-WORK (Deep Learning Summit Track 1, Montreal, 2017) is a great watch.

Intro from Yann (FB Director of AI Research) LeCun’s FB page.

//Video of the panel in which Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton and I answer questions moderated by Joelle Pineau (who leads the FAIR-Montréal lab).

This took place at the Re*Work deep learning summit in Montreal a few weeks ago.//

Intro from the web page (with video, ~23 minutes).

//Overview

The Deep Learning Summit took place in Montreal on 10-11 October 2017 and brought together global AI pioneers including: Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun, and Geoffrey Hinton, as well as experts from companies including Intel, NVIDIA, Twenty Billion Neurons and Apple.

We’re currently working on the videos for the summit so please fill in the form below and we’ll email you when they’re ready.//

Julie Payette – Canada’s next Governor General

I’m thrilled and excited to hear Ms. Julie Payette, TA of myUniversity of Toronto Computer Science CSC258 class (I wrote more in this post), has been named Canada’s next Governor General.

2017 July 13, CBC News, “‘Unquestionably qualified’: Ex-astronaut Julie Payette formally introduced as Canada’s next GG – Prime minister holds news conference on Parliament Hill to name successor to David Johnston”

U of T News, “U of T alumna Julie Payette to be next Governor General”

Via CBC Politics LIVE FB post.

Have a watch of this amazing CBC Witness (1993) documentary “Space For Four (1993)”

Pick and Place machines

I re-watched Joi Ito‘s fascinating TED Talk ‘Want to innovate? Become a “now-ist”‘ again and got fascinated by Pick and Place machines (ref: Samsung) once again!

Here are three blog post by Limor Fried (Ladyada), owner of the electronics hobbyist company Adafruit Industries.

1. APRIL 15, 2013 SAMSUNG TECHWIN SMT SM482 training today #manufacturing #madeinny @madeinny
2. AUGUST 8, 2013 Adafruit donates its first pick and place machine to NYC Resistor Hackerspace @nycresistor
3. MAY 12, 2014 SAMSUNG SM481 arrived today – almost doubling our manufacturing capabilities and more #makerbusiness #manufacturing

Joi Ito‘s fascinating TED Talk ‘Want to innovate? Become a “now-ist”‘

Happy 92nd Birthday to “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof. Kelly Gotlieb

 

Happy 92nd Birthday to Professor Emeritus C.C. Kelly Gotlieb, (Wikipedia) “Father of Computing in Canada”, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. I am happy to be able to reach Kelly today to wish him happy birthday, good health and all the best!

In recent weeks, I had the honour and pleasure to interview Kelly extensive twice, once via video using Google+ Hangout On Air, another time using Skype audio. Have a watch & listen. Enjoy. Happy 92nd birthday Kelly!

eps02 chat with “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof. Kelly Gotlieb (Ref original article)

Interview with “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof Gotlieb re Google Car, Google Glasses, Alan Turing (Ref original article)

2018 April 19th update: I’m very sad to report the passing of Prof. Kelly Gotlieb on October 16th, 2016 at the age of 95. Have a read of these insightful obits:

1.  “Kelly Gotlieb was the father of Canadian computing”. The Globe and Mail
2. “In Memoriam: The “Father of Computing in Canada” Calvin C. Gotlieb”. University of Toronto Computer Science
3. “In Memoriam: Calvin Carl “kelly” Gotlieb 1921-2016″. Communications of the ACM

This excerpt from the G&M obit really touched me and warmed my heart,

“Kelly and Phyllis Gotlieb had one of the great love affairs. In a 2015 interview, six years after his wife’s death, Dr. Gotlieb said of their relationship: “A scientist who loves poetry and a poet who loves science … It doesn’t get any better than that.” Dr. Gotlieb spent his professional life on the frontier of techno-scientific knowledge, while his wife Phyllis (née Bloom) was an award-winning writer of poetry and speculative fiction who pondered how discoveries such as those of her husband might affect the mind, soul and society of humankind. In their breadth, depth and passion of interests, they were a two-person university.

One of her books of verse was a compilation of love poems sent to her husband over more than 60 years of marriage. The publication of Phyllis Loves Kelly [downloadable via this U of T library page] marked their diamond wedding anniversary in June, 2009; six weeks later she died suddenly at the age of 83. His epitaph to her was: She Graced This World/And Imagined Others. Her tribute to him lies in her final volume of poetry, where she compares herself to the famous fictional cat created by American humourist Don Marquis:

        If like a tom and tab
we sometimes hiss and scratch and jab
I’m still from here to Heaven or Hell
your favourite
                 Mehitabel“

U of Toronto University Professor Emeritus Stephen A. Cook won NSERC $1 million Herzberg Medal – with interview by Kempton

Congratulations to University of Toronto Computer Science professor Stephen Cook, best known for formulating the P v. NP problem, for winning the $1M 2012 Gerhard Herzberg medal (also via CBC News)!

After all these years, I still remember the thrill in taking my first year UT Comp. Sci class in 1987 with prof. Cook! And it remains an honour (and bragging right) to have taken the famous third year CSC364 Computability and Complexity class with prof. Cook and seeing him proved to us 3-satisfiability and taught us P v. NP, etc. I am truly excited for prof. Cook!

Check out my 15 minutes interview with Prof. Cook this morning: Interview with Dr. Stephen A. Cook, 2012 Winner of NSERC’s $1m Herzberg Medal

By the way, as prof. cook mentioned in the interview, he came to the idea of the NP complete problem about 6 months after he came to Toronto in 1970. If you read the detailed & insightful oral history interview with Stephen Cook (courtesy of University of Minnesota), you will realize professor Cook could have easily stayed at UC Berkeley (if they had not denied him tenure) instead of joining us at University of Toronto! Lucky us!

Last week, I asked prof. Kelly Gotlieb “Father of Computing in Canada” for his thoughts about some giants in computer science, here is what Kelly has to say about Steve (video clip).

Here is “NSERC Presents 2 Minutes With Stephen Cook”

Here is an excerpt from a great Q&A from U of Toronto.

“What drew you to this field – and to this particular focus?
I enrolled as a mathematics graduate student at Harvard in 1961, thinking I’d concentrate in algebra. Computer Science did not yet exist as a discipline. After taking a course in `logic and computation’ from Hao Wang, my future advisor, I switched fields. My PhD thesis was inspired by a question posed by a pioneer in the field named Alan Cobham: Is multiplication (of large numbers) intrinsically harder than addition? Part of the challenge was to formulate this as a precise mathematical question.

Why U of T?
I joined the faculty of the computer science department at U of T in 1970. This was one of the world’s first CS departments, and Tom Hull, the department chair, had a powerful vision for its future. He already had recruited some aspiring young faculty, including my close colleague Allan Borodin, who continues to be a pillar of the department. It helped that Toronto is a good sailing venue on Lake Ontario, and sailing was (and is) a major hobby for my wife and me.

What advice would you give to a student just starting out in this field?
You’ve made a good choice. The possibilities are boundless.“

Via this UT page, see more media coverage about the 2012 Herzberg Prize at these links below:

“- Globe & Mail

– Canada.com

– Calgary Herald

– CBC News“

eps02 chat with “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof. Kelly Gotlieb

 

This is the second (eps 02) of a series of extensive chats with Professor Emeritus C.C. Kelly Gotlieb, (Wikipedia) “Father of Computing in Canada”, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. In this video episode (as oppose to audio recording only in episode #1), we further discussed Google Driverless Cars and Google Glasses in a bit more details, and a few other topics. (I will try to provide a time code key when I have time later or if someone can help me with providing a time code key to the interview.)

eps02 chat with “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof. Kelly Gotlieb

P.S. Incidentally, I am happy to claim credit for suggesting Kelly to setup a Google+ account and then also helped him to setup his computer this morning so that we were able to conduct a successful Live Broadcast using the Google+ Hangout On Air technologies using its YouTube engine! It puts a smile on my face in helping the man who helped bought the second electronic computer (a Ferranti machine for $300,000) in the world in 1951 to use Google’s cutting edge technologies to broadcast live from his and my home!

2018 April 19th update: I’m very sad to report the passing of Prof. Kelly Gotlieb on October 16th, 2016 at the age of 95. Have a read of these insightful obits:

1.  “Kelly Gotlieb was the father of Canadian computing”. The Globe and Mail
2. “In Memoriam: The “Father of Computing in Canada” Calvin C. Gotlieb”. University of Toronto Computer Science
3. “In Memoriam: Calvin Carl “kelly” Gotlieb 1921-2016″. Communications of the ACM

This excerpt from the G&M obit really touched me and warmed my heart,

“Kelly and Phyllis Gotlieb had one of the great love affairs. In a 2015 interview, six years after his wife’s death, Dr. Gotlieb said of their relationship: “A scientist who loves poetry and a poet who loves science … It doesn’t get any better than that.” Dr. Gotlieb spent his professional life on the frontier of techno-scientific knowledge, while his wife Phyllis (née Bloom) was an award-winning writer of poetry and speculative fiction who pondered how discoveries such as those of her husband might affect the mind, soul and society of humankind. In their breadth, depth and passion of interests, they were a two-person university.

One of her books of verse was a compilation of love poems sent to her husband over more than 60 years of marriage. The publication of Phyllis Loves Kelly [downloadable via this U of T library page] marked their diamond wedding anniversary in June, 2009; six weeks later she died suddenly at the age of 83. His epitaph to her was: She Graced This World/And Imagined Others. Her tribute to him lies in her final volume of poetry, where she compares herself to the famous fictional cat created by American humourist Don Marquis:

        If like a tom and tab
we sometimes hiss and scratch and jab
I’m still from here to Heaven or Hell
your favourite
                 Mehitabel“

Interview with “Father of Computing in Canada” re Google Car, Google Glasses, Alan Turing

 

Interview with “Father of Computing in Canada” Prof Gotlieb re Google Car, Google Glasses, Alan Turing

This is an extensive interview with Professor Emeritus C.C. Kelly Gotlieb, (Wikipedia) “Father of Computing in Canada”, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Feb 2013 interviewed by Independent reporter Kempton Lam
KL: Kempton Lam
KG: Professor Emeritus C.C. Kelly Gotlieb
Table of content (with time codes):
0:00 KL: Introducing Professor Emeritus C.C. (Kelly) Gotlieb, “Father of Computing in Canada”, University of Toronto
0:29 KL: My question about Google Driverless Cars. Three US states already has law permitting testing of Google Driverless Cars. Talking about California governor signed the bill, “SB-1298 Vehicles: autonomous vehicles: safety and performance requirements” into law.
2:07 KL: Bill SB-1298 allows Google to test the Google Driverless Car provided Google pays a $5 million insurance, and provided there is a driver in the car.
2:21 KG: “That’s what I expected.”
2:35 KL: My concerns were concerns raised by Kelly in an earlier speech of his.
2:47 KG: listing some of the concerns he has with concepts like Google Driverless Cars. “United States is a very litigious society.”
3:12 KG: Google Driverless Car gets into an accident, whose to blame? And who can you sue? The person who wrote the program? Google who authorize the car? Car manufacture? The person who is in the car? Or all of the above? […] Lots of questions to be asked when failure happen.

“Computational Thinking” by Professor Jeannette Wing, CMU Comp Sci Department Head

Highly recommending an insightful Feb 7, 2012 “Computational Thinking” presentation at U of Toronto by professor Jeannette M. Wing (President’s Professor of Computer Science and Department Head, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University).

Two Google lawyers reflect on Oracle v. Google

Great interviews re “Oracle v. Google” patent and copyright trail with two Google attorneys: general counsel Kent Walker, and litigation counsel Renny Hwang. Highly recommended. [HT +Lauren Weinstein]

Meetings, Bloody Google Search Quality Meeting

I absolutely LOVE this highly technical but also very insightful annotated Google Search Quality Meeting: Spelling for Long Queries (hence the ref to the comedy training film Meetings, Bloody Meetings). The annotation is great. I hope Google will post more. Enjoy. [HT Google & Google Inside Search]

Following are my words of encouragement in hope that Google will post more.

1) For tech geeks

I am one. And it is cool to see how you guys think and make decisions that affect users of Google.

2) For non-geeks

I think it is great that you guys are trying to be more transparent. I hope you will post more of these videos on a regular basis. Google Search affects so many people and business, the more transparent things are, the less we “worry” about Google (I hope I am right to worry less).

3) For your competitors

I remember Toyota used to (I’m not sure if they still do) give tours of their factories to competitors. Why? Don’t they worry about being copied? Well, no. The idea is by the time competitors copy, Toyota will have improved on its process, production methods, etc. This also forces Toyota into a continuous improvement cycle. In the pursuit of perfection. They will never be perfect but they will always be trying.

Catch up with Bill Buxton

Bill Buxton is one of the smartest technologists I know of. Once in a while, I try to “catch up” with Bill by finding some of his online presentations/videos to watch. I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I do.

2011 TIFF Nexus: Locative Media Day Keynote: Bill Buxton on Whereable Media

Bill Buxton presents at AdWeek 2011

Bill Buxton speaks about technology’s effect on advertising at AdWeek 2011

See my previous post about Bill here, here, here, here (video), and here (video).

Also check out tiff.net/nexus. Here is an intro video.

Big Ideas: Freeman Dyson on Living Through Four Revolutions

What a great pleasure (funny and very insightful) to watch the video presentation of the 87 years old Freeman Dyson on TVO Big Ideas: Freeman Dyson on Living Through Four Revolutions. (broken link fixed 20200421) Highly recommended.

P.S. I read about Dyson initially through the stories and scientific works of Richard Feynman.

Computational Aesthetics 2011 – Marta Blicharz

Check out my friend Marta Blicharz’s report where her artwork submission was accepted into the Computational Aesthetics 2011 academic conference and art exhibition. Really cool looking arts and interesting report.

Here is a brief video.

re: internet voting – A software engineer’s critique of Elections Canada Chief Electoral Officer’s plan

Background

In this article, I am writing as a reporter and also as a computer scientist with 10 years of software engineering experiences plus a keen interest in internet security & internet voting issues for over 10 years. To me, there are many potential issues with internet voting and I will discuss two main issues I see in this article.

This recent discussion of  internet voting is a result of Elections Canada Chief Electoral Officer’s report on the 41st general election (PDF file) (emphasis and link added),

“Under section 18.1 of the Act, the Chief Electoral Officer may carry out studies on alternative voting methods and test electronic voting processes for use during general elections or by-elections, subject to the approval of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Elections Canada has been examining Internet voting as a complementary and convenient way to cast a ballot. The Chief Electoral Officer is committed to seeking approval for a test of Internet voting in a by-election held after 2013.“

1) “Security” of internet-based voting system vs. Advantage of Paper Ballots

Paper ballots used in Canada have one major security advantage: it takes a long time to fake or temper with the votes. Can you image, with our existing checks and balances, someone physically temper with (i.e. change the voters’ votes) 10 paper votes, 100 votes, or 10,000 votes? I honestly can’t. There are just so many Elections Canada people and election scrutineers from all parties to make tempering with physical votes almost impossible.

Now, can I, as a former software engineer, image someone with the smart and knowledge of the particular internet voting system’s precise weakness, electronically tempering with 100,000 votes in a general election? Absolutely!

Am I just imagining potential security weaknesses and worrying too much? Well, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics had some serious eggs on their faces in Oct 2010. They thought they had a secure internet-based voting system enough that they ask people to help test their system. Only after a few days of testing, their embarrassing failure was documented by Washington Post in “Hacker infiltration ends D.C. online voting trial”. [HT Bruce Schneier]

“Last week, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics opened a new Internet-based voting system for a weeklong test period, inviting computer experts from all corners to prod its vulnerabilities in the spirit of “give it your best shot.” Well, the hackers gave it their best shot — and midday Friday, the trial period was suspended, with the board citing “usability issues brought to our attention.“

Here’s one of those issues: After casting a vote, according to test observers, the Web site played “Hail to The Victors” — the University of Michigan fight song.

“The integrity of the system had been violated,” said Paul Stenbjorn, the board’s chief technology officer.“

Let me quote Bruce Schneier which I totally agree (emphasis added),

“My primary worry about contests like this is that people will think a positive result means something. If a bunch of students can break into a system after a couple of weeks of attempts, we know it’s insecure. But just because a system withstands a test like this doesn’t mean it’s secure. We don’t know who tried. We don’t know what they tried. We don’t know how long they tried. And we don’t know if someone who tries smarter, harder, and longer could break the system.“

Fair election is the foundation of our democracy, as a software engineer of large scale safety and mission critical systems for 10 years, I try speak with an impartial view. I honestly don’t know if we can build a secure internet voting system that I would risk Canada’s democracy.

Sure, other countries may have internet-voting which their citizens approve. But what other countries do or don’t does not necessarily mean it is right! I care about my own country’s democracy which is why I am speaking out.

By the way, don’t even think about security by obscurity (using secrecy of design, etc) because it is a really bad idea!

2) Secret Ballots in Polling stations vs. Internet voting location

Polling stations in Canada have a specific set of requirements and the ability to let voters cast their ballots in secret is one of those fundamental requirements.

Unfortunately, when voting is done over the internet, we can be no longer be sure all ballots are casted without undue influence from others in the “voting booth” because there isn’t a “voting booth” anymore.

Imagine a religious, trade, activist, etc group encouraging their members to vote on a computer at a common location for “elections parties”, while their leaders keep coercing their members. Can we stop this easily and effectively?

Even if the group is as small as a family, should we allow the sanctity of & requirement of “secret ballots” be violated by over-eager parents, grandparents, relatives, or friends?

3) My brief replies to interesting comments and “solutions” from this CBC News August 18 at 6:43am Facebook posting.

• From Melissa Dimock, “I’m a little leery of it, but it’s being done elsewhere. I do think that making voting easier, more accessible and convenient would improve voter turn-out. […]” August 18 at 6:45am

My reply: I don’t know if internet-voting will increase voter turn-out for the long term once the novelty factor is gone. But assuming it does, does it worth the risks stated in (1) & (2) above?

• From Steve Cooper, “I’m not too down with it. I wouldn’t trust it. Imagine on election night the result is a massive swing to a party you are not pleased with. How confident would you be that the result is legitimate?” August 18 at 6:51am

I have to agree with Steve.

• From David Jamieson, “Nope and Nope again. It is a ridiculous idea in this age of hacking. A vote in a democracy is far too important to be left in the hands of so few. […]” August 18 at 6:52am

I also agree with David.

• From Erika Belanger, “if you can submit your income tax or do banking on the Internet, we should be able to vote that way. Might have more voters that way. There as to be a way to make it secure…..” August 18 at 6:54am

I think Erika‘s thought may be shared by many Canadians. Why is it safe to submit income tax and do banking on the internet but not so for voting?

Well, lets put things in context with #2 above. We have no worries if someone is watching and monitoring how a person is paying income tax or banking online. But we have serious concern if someone is monitored and being “influenced” on how they vote in an “internet voting booth” at home or at any location.

Hacking our internet banking while profitable to criminals, imagine criminals help hack an election and control Canada’s political future? Our votes, paradoxically, are much more valuable in some sense even many fellow Canadians routinely give up their rights to vote.

A healthy democracy needs constructive debates. Please add your views, I will try to selective reply to some of the comments.

*** References & Notes ***

Bruce Schneier is an internationally respected computer security expert, he is the expert that I have read and admire for over 10 years! In this article, I quoted his Oct 2010 piece “Hacking Trial Breaks D.C. Internet Voting System” extensively. His earlier but comprehensive Dec 2000 piece “Voting and Technology“, while written over 10 years ago, still contains some valuable insights (even thought they may not be his latest thinking). His Dec 2003 “Computerized and Electronic Voting” is also a good read.

Interview with Mohamed Mansour – Creator of “Facebook Friend Exporter” & “My Hangouts for Google Plus”, and Google Chromium committer

Mohamed Mansour is a Canadian Software Engineer and the creator of the cool Google+ extensions “Facebook Friend Exporter“, “My Hangouts for Google Plus“, “Hangout Auto Retry Try Again” and “Extended Share for Google Plus“. Mohamed is also a contributor (actually a committer) of Google Chrome‘s open source project Chromium.

Few days ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a technical interview with Mohamed to talk about his various software work and a little bit about himself. Have a watch of the following video clips. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I was in conducting the interview.

Mohamed Mansour Technical Interview (Chromium, Chrome vs. Firefox …) 01/03

– How did Mohamed get start working on Chromium (Google Chrome’s open source project)?

– Why did Mohamed choose to work on Chrome instead of Firefox?

– Mohamed talked about his experiences of putting in his first patch on the Chromium.

– At university, how did Mohamed switch from chemical engineering to electrical engineering, and finally settling on software engineering?

– Why did Mohamed decide to take the path of putting in so much time in open-source software work, instead of like other talented software engineers spending time to make the next new new product and make a ton of money?

– And other discussions.

Mohamed Mansour Technical Interview (Facebook Friend Exporter…) 02/03

– “Facebook Friend Exporter“, Mohamed talks about the development history and the road blocks Facebook put up.

– “Extended Share for Google Plus” (a tool that share things to Facebook, Twitter, etc)

– “Hangout Auto Retry Try Again”

– And other discussions.

Mohamed Mansour Technical Interview (Google+ Hangout, My Hangouts for G+…) 03/03

– Technical discussion about Google+ Hangout. Video data usage, etc.

– Talk about the useful extension, “My Hangouts for Google Plus”

– Mohamed’s path to become a committer of Chromium (Google Chrome‘s open source project).

– Lines of code Mohamed authored for project Chromium. Here are some stats of Mohamed’s Chromium (Google Chrome) contribution and Chromium Tools (Google Chrome) contribution.

– And other discussions.

Apple Latest PR Disaster – Final Cut Pro X is Not a Professional Application

July 2nd update: New article, “Business Strategy: Apple, with its Final Cut Pro X, lets Adobe & Avid refight their Battles of Waterloo #fail”

***

It is puzzling and amazing to see Apple seems to have created a massive PR disaster for itself and there is even a group of professional Final Cut Pro users created a petition – “Final Cut Pro X is Not a Professional Application”. And according to AppleInsider report, “Dissatisfied Final Cut Pro X customers receive refunds from Apple“.

More news,

* CNNMoney, “600 filmmakers sign complaint about Final Cut Pro X”

* ZDNet, “What does Final Cut Pro X teach enterprise vendors?”

* WaPo, “Apple Final Cut Pro X: 600 filmmakers say nothing ‘pro’ about it”

* SlashFilm, “Final Cut Pro X: Did Apple Just Walk Away From the Professional Video Editing Market?”

*  CNet, “Petition seeks to bring back old Final Cut Pro“

If shows again even Apple (a Lovemark to many people, not to me anymore since July 2010) isn’t immune to complains from seriously unhappy customers if it doesn’t deliver the goods as expected.

Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto

Writing an earlier article reminded me of some fond memories during my time at the Department of Computer Science at University of Toronto. A quick visit to the DCS site later, it got me into wanting to write and share a few words.

Congrats

I want to congratulate Professor Allan Borodin (my teacher in CSC238) for being named University Professor. The citation notes (emphasis added):

“Professor Borodin has a long and distinguished research career in theoretical computer science. His central area of interest, computational complexity and algorithm design, addresses the basic issue of determining the minimum resources required to solve computational problems. A common theme in Borodin’s research is that he explores fundamental questions that seemingly should be well understood but often defy answers to even the most basic aspects of these questions. Hence, he has often been at the forefront of developing new models and problem formulations that have become standard frameworks for computer science studies.”

Prof. Borodin’s “full citation may be found on the U of T Vice-President and Provost Web site. Also, the U of T Bulletin released an article on the 2010-2011 University Professors.”

Congrats Prof. Borodin!

Retirement

I noticed University Professor Stephen Cook (my teacher in CSC158(?) and CSC364) now has “Emeritus” added to his formal title, I supposed meaning he is retiring. But I also noticed that he is still teaching CSC2401F (Sept – Dec 2011) so I hope Prof. Cook is still teaching a course or two from time to time.

I haven’t been back at DCS for many years now, but I think it will be a bit strange, for future students, to study at DCS  without being taught or exposed to NP-complete problem by the man who first described the problem in 1971 or simply attending seminars or colloquium with Prof. Cook in the audience, which I had the pleasure doing when I was doing my B.Sc. at DCS.

In Memoriam – Professor Kenneth C. Sevcik

While I was student of Professor Sevcik for a brief time (part of CSC158 and for CSC354(?)), I remember Prof. Sevcik as a very warm and helpful teacher. So it saddens me to read that Prof. Sevcik passed away on October 4, 2005. But reading the “Ken Sevcik Memorial Blog“, especially Prof. Sevcik’s wife Carmen’s October 1, 2010 entry touched me very much as it reminds me that when we pass on, we will live in the hearts and minds of others who stay behind. When we have lived a good life, we stay on thorough the memories of others.

Have a read of Carmen’s loving entry and you will know what I mean.

Ariel Garten, CEO InteraXon, interview @ Banff World Media Festival 2011

I had a very enjoyable time attending Ariel Garten’s (CEO of InteraXon creator of the Muse headband) NextMedia Keynote address: Thought Controlled Computing @ Banff World Media Festival 2011. Afterwards, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ariel. Here is the interview video.

The following are a few highlights of my video interview with Ariel.

* 0:00 In your presentation, some ideas are very cutting-edge and quite “out-there”. When you meet corporate clients, how do you engage them and bring them down to earth?

* 1:03 Talking about the chewing gum example (the “chew off”) discussed in your presentation, can you tell us more and which brand it was? What does InteraXon actually measure? [Kempton’s note: The chewing gum campaign went live on June 16th. At press time, I haven’t heard any updates from InteraXon.]

* 2:20 So does the software system work by basing on its previous training of brainwave signals?

* 2:48 How accurate is the software? Lets take heart rate as an example because it is easy to know what is right.

* 3:16 You mentioned the system has limitations, can you elaborate on the kind of limitations please? [Kempton: Here are some reading about Alpha (relax “awake but relaxed”) and Beta (focus “alert and attentive”) brain waves. And via Wikipedia, Alpha and Beta.]

* 3:48 Ariel talks about the reliability in using Alpha and Beta brain waves, especially for new users.

* 4:05 What other signals can your system use?

* 4:25 Am I using the right analogy to compare the “training” your system undergoes to the “training” speech recognition system needed in the past?

* 4:52 Someone asked Ariel about the possibility of using brainwaves for security authentication purposes. How unique are brainwaves? Can it be done now? If not now, how may it work in the future?