PBS Nova documentary about the Darpa Grand Challenge.  It's interesting to see the comparison of approaches between Stanford and Carnegie Mellon. 

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/darpa/about.html

How close are we to virtualization of a person? The technology developed over the past 1-2 years is really impressive.

Step 1 - Scan in a Person.  One company that does full-body scans is Artec3D (https://www.artec3d.com/handheld-3d-scanners/shapifybooth).

Step 2 - Create animations from the scanned 3D model. ​

Next Phase: Step 4 - Construct Hologram or 3D projection onto a Mannequin (later a robot that moves).

Next Phase: Step 5 - Develop chat bot for talking with your supervisor (just negate anything he says and you will do fine).

Looking back at the year, I was thinking what software and hardware have I been the most happy with.  

Hardware:

• Apple MacBook Pro 13" (2009 and 2010) - I have two of these devices. One for personal use and one for business. They are seriously great laptops.
  
• Asus Transformer Mini T102HA - this is a 10.1" tablet with an attachable keyboard and stylus. I had wanted a device that I could a) read PDFs papers with and underline text; and b) write notes. I also didn't want to pay $1200 for something like a Microsoft Surface or an Apple iPad Pro. Instead I purchased this device for $299 and was surprised that it also ran Windows 10. I loaded Synthesis (www.synthesis.info) onto the device and was really surprised it had the power to run it.  
• Nvidia Cool Master 590 case (home -built computer) - Still an awesome case. 
• Raspberry Pi Model 3 B - powerful enough to run a NAS (www.openmediavault.org).
• Seiki 4K 39" monitor (SE39UY04) - great large monitor for development and display.

Software:

• VirtualBox - My default virtualization software (I also have VMWare and Parallels)
• Skype - Its surprising how often I use Skype and how well it works.  
• Balsamiq Mockup 3 (www.balsamiq.com) - A very good application for mocking up GUIs.
• NotePad++ (www.notepad-plus-plus.org) - An excellent text editor.  
• Synthesis (www.synthesis.info) - Even though I co-developed the software, I use it alot for academic literature searches.
• Open Media Vault (www.openmediavault.org) - Network Attached Storage software. 
  
• Etcher (www.etcher.io) - software to write ISO files.
  
• PDF XChange Viewer  (https://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer)

Development Software:

• IntelliJ (www.jetbrains.com/idea/) - Java IDE
• WebStorm (www.jetbrains.com/webstorm) - HTML/JavaScript IDE
• RStudio (www.rstudio.com) - R IDE
• OxygenXML (www.oxygenxml.com) - XML Editor (with great support for DITA)

Software that I would have liked to have tried:

• InfoGraphics (http://www.jumsoft.com/toolbox-for-ms-office/) - Interesting Templates. (Pictogram/Pictograph)
• Timeline 3D (https://www.beedocs.com/timeline3D/mac/) 
• Office Timeline (www.officetimeline.com)
  

The following are Java related items in the collection. It includes Java hardware, Java Development IDEs, Java commercial packaged software, and Promotional Items.

JavaStation-1 (1996-2000)

Was a Network Computer (NC) that was created to run only Java Applications. Could be considered a Thin Client today.

Codename was Mr. Coffee.

 100 MHz MicroSPARC IIep CPU 
​

JavaStation-NC (JavaStation-10) (1996-2000)

Was a Network Computer (NC) that was created to run only Java Applications. Could be considered a Thin Client today.
​
Codename was Krups. 

 100 MHz MicroSPARC IIep CPU ​

Java Ring (1988)

A ring-mounted Java virtual machine compatible with the Java Card 2.0 .  It was given to attendees of the 1998 JavaOne conference.

Based upon a iButton (1-wire) design. The ring could be connected to a RS-232 interface for transferring data. The interfaced pictured has two mounts to allow joint authentication to occur.  

Sun SPOT Java Development Kit (2007)

Sun SPOT stood for "Sun Small Programmable Object Technology". It was a sensor node technology for a wireless sensor networks. The device used IEEE 802.15.4 for networking,and used the Squawk Java virtual machine.
​

Borland JBuilder

IBM Visual Age for Java

Microsoft Visual J++
​

Symantec Cafe

Code Warrior for Java
​

Sun Java Desktop System (2003)
​

Sun ONE Starter Kit

Sun Star Office 6.0

Dandelions are being an increasing problem. Cities are no longer spraying to control the weed due to the public's increasing pressure against it due to both short term and long term health concerns.

News report:
http://globalnews.ca/news/3472730/dandelions-dominate-lawns-as-edmontonians-demand-more-help-from-city/

What is needed is a automated robotic Dandelion weeder.  

Some initial thoughts:

Technology:

• Vision Processing (Nvidia Jetson TX1/TX2) - Computer + GPU
• Snipper (removes the flower - downs not remove the roots)
• Drill/Auger (for displacing the root system)

Potential Form Factors (solar power):

• Lawn-Mower type (flat fields) 
• 6 leg spider-like (able to handle steep hills)

 
What I envision is a system that is autonomous and runs during the day using solar power as that is when the Dandelion's flowers are open.  This makes it easier for the vision processing system to recognize the flower.

Once the Dandelion has been identified then the robotic weeder would either snip the flower (before it can move to seed) or still better would be to remove the root system.   

At present there are few academic papers/systems on identifying the dandelions using vision processing.  I have not searched for the best mechanics for removing the Dandelion.  

Several years ago I bought a Microsoft Kinect to experiment what it could do and how it could be applied to some of my work.  Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to play with it when I bought it (back in 2010) -- but 7 years later I finally got around to connecting it to my computer and playing around with it.  Alot of this was prompted by attending the Nvidia GPU conference (May 2017) and having myself scanned.

Installation was for Windows 7 so I needed an older version of the Kinect for Windows drivers:
Kinect for Windows SDK v1.8

The software that I used for scanning the room was:
http://skanect.occipital.com/

​Other software for scanning:  http://reconstructme.net and http://www.kscan3d.com
 
To use with Skype (the microphone works by default) you will need:
http://codingbytodesign.net/2013/03/17/kinect-for-pc-and-skype-means-kinectcam/

A Java SDK for the Kinect is also available at:
​http://research.dwi.ufl.edu/ufdw/j4k/

Some suggestions for future topics for the Retro Computing Roundtable (http://rcrpodcast.com) podcast.


Hardware Emulators

• Amiga - hardware emulations for IBM and Macintosh
• Atari - hardware emulations for Macintosh
• Sun - hardware emulations for IBM 

Specialized Hardware - Copy Protection Breakage 

•  IBM - Central Point PC Backup II Option Card
• Amiga - Synchro Express
• Atari 400/800 Drive Happy card

Specialized Hardware - Transputer Cards

• Microway Quadputer
• Transputer Education Kit (TEK)

How to Store Hardware Cards

• What is the best way to store lots of hardware cards (i.e. packing)
• What is the best way to store CPUs and memory
• What do you do with cards that have no labels/markings - so you don't know what they are (especially ones with no connections)

Local Stores that Sold Computers

• Photo collection of these stores (outside and inside)
• Did you hang out at these stores
• Famous ones - the Byte Shop (Apple I)

Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD), is a class of parallel computers in Flynn's taxonomy. It describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data points simultaneously. Thus, such machines exploit data level parallelism, but not concurrency: there are simultaneous (parallel) computations, but only a single process (instruction) at a given moment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMD

Loop unrolling, also known as loop unwinding, is a loop transformation technique that attempts to optimize a program's execution speed at the expense of its binary size, which is an approach known as the space-time tradeoff. The transformation can be undertaken manually by the programmer or by an optimizing compiler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_unrolling

In computer science, an Anytime Algorithm is an algorithm that can return a valid solution to a problem even if it is interrupted before it ends. The algorithm is expected to find better and better solutions the more time it keeps running.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anytime_algorithm

​

I just received a lot of AT&T Unix PC Cards from a friend who used to work at AT&T at the time these were introduced.  I have alot of the orginial media for these (and had wondered what happend to the cards).  

In the lot are the following:

• AT&T Speech Processor (sn-0174)
• Memory Card - part number: D-43-00219-00
• Memory Card - part number: D-43-00219-01
• Memory Card - part number: D-43-00219-01 rev C
• Memory Card - part number: D-43-00226-00 rev A
• EIA/Ram Combo Card - part number: D-043-00221-00 rev A (2 RS232 ports) 
• Tape Drive Interface - 60-00234-00 (parallel port)
• Tape Drive Interface - 60-00234-00 (parallel port)
• DOS 73 unix coprocessor - Alloy Computer Products
• DOS 73 unix coprocessor (sn-569)- Alloy Computer Products

I have two AT&T computers - each one of these can take three cards.