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TechnographComputing competition winners expand technology at University's Siebel Center
By Frank Krolicki
Posted: 9/13/05 Section: News
Thompson said the department plans to incorporate other projects resulting from the competition including "Janus's Map," which provides door lock history via a Web interface.
"This provides an opportunity to work through concerns about privacy," Thompson said. "Just because you can make all of this information available doesn't mean people want it to be," he said.
Using Janus's Map, professors and teaching assistants choose whether their door lock status, which can be used to indicate availability, is made public, allowing for protection of privacy, he explained.
Siebel Radar is another competition project that will be incorporated into the Siebel Center's infrastructure. This project uses motion and proximity sensors to collect real-time data on the location of Siebel Center inhabitants and present room scheduling information. Matthew Loar, the project's author, said work to incorporate certain aspects has already begun.
Loar worked over the summer with Siebel Center staff to devise a way to incorporate Siebel Radar into the building's video wall.
"Siebel Radar was originally written as a C# application, but the system that the department uses to run the video wall employs a play list of Web pages," he explained. "I ended up converting Siebel Radar into an ActiveX control so that it could be embedded in a Web page."
Loar said coming up with his project idea was not easy, though he knew he wanted his project to take advantage of the center's video wall.
"I kept thinking about how on Star Trek, the ship kept track of where everyone was," Loar said. "I knew I couldn't do this in Siebel because of privacy concerns, but I thought that with a building that large, it would be nice to at least see where there were people, even if you couldn't tell who exactly they were."
He said that, in moving his project from an idea to a product, he first had to find a map of the building, and then find coordinates on the map for individual rooms to properly indicate occupancy or print scheduling data.
"This provides an opportunity to work through concerns about privacy," Thompson said. "Just because you can make all of this information available doesn't mean people want it to be," he said.
Using Janus's Map, professors and teaching assistants choose whether their door lock status, which can be used to indicate availability, is made public, allowing for protection of privacy, he explained.
Siebel Radar is another competition project that will be incorporated into the Siebel Center's infrastructure. This project uses motion and proximity sensors to collect real-time data on the location of Siebel Center inhabitants and present room scheduling information. Matthew Loar, the project's author, said work to incorporate certain aspects has already begun.
Loar worked over the summer with Siebel Center staff to devise a way to incorporate Siebel Radar into the building's video wall.
"Siebel Radar was originally written as a C# application, but the system that the department uses to run the video wall employs a play list of Web pages," he explained. "I ended up converting Siebel Radar into an ActiveX control so that it could be embedded in a Web page."
Loar said coming up with his project idea was not easy, though he knew he wanted his project to take advantage of the center's video wall.
"I kept thinking about how on Star Trek, the ship kept track of where everyone was," Loar said. "I knew I couldn't do this in Siebel because of privacy concerns, but I thought that with a building that large, it would be nice to at least see where there were people, even if you couldn't tell who exactly they were."
He said that, in moving his project from an idea to a product, he first had to find a map of the building, and then find coordinates on the map for individual rooms to properly indicate occupancy or print scheduling data.
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