News

Surgical training and evaluation more accessible and cost-effective with overlay technology-based system.

Read the details in the Queen’s Journal.

Dr. Roel Vertegaal’s research project, User Interface Technologies for Non Planar & Flexible Displays, has been awarded funding under the Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence program.

Click here for more information.

Congratulations Roel!

Dear all,

On your behalf I would like to express our appreciation to the following wonderful undergraduates who spent several hours on the phone calling everyone who applied to the School of Computing for 2010-2011, answering questions, and promoting our programs:

Daniel Basilio
Eril Berkok
Charlotte Blinston
Michelle Brown
Shanee Honig
Mike Ounsworth
Eric Rapos
Thomas Vaughan

Thank you Daniel, Eril, Charlotte, Michelle, Shanee, Mike, Eric and Thomas; the School could not hope for better ambassadors.

Selim

The ICT Branch has recently updated the Canadian ICT Statistical Overview
(ICTSO) web-site with new 2009 annual data on R&D expenditures in ICT. Below are the highlights of the Canadian performance:

* In 2009 ICT sector R&D expenditures were $6.2 billion, which represents an increase of 2.5% from the year before.

* The software industry led the growth with an increase in R&D expenditures of over $224 million (+28%) from the previous year. However, at the same time, R&D expenditures contracted in a number of industries including the electronic components industry which posted the largest decline in 2009, a
$103 million drop (-11%).

* ICT sector R&D as a share of total Canadian private sector R&D spending has remained fairly constant over the years, accounting for 38.5% of 2009 total. The sector still remains the largest private sector R&D performer in Canada.

More information in the “What’s New” section of the IC website.

We would like to tell you about a major competition on computer security which will be taking place in April 2010. The HackUS competition, to be held at Université de Sherbrooke, will give over 200 computer enthusiasts a 48-hour opportunity to test their abilities against a series of technical challenges in the area of computer security. The event is open to everyone, and will bring together competitors from academic and professional circles and the lay public. For more information, we invite you to consult the competition web site : http://www.hackus.org/en/.

We are therefore writing to request your help to convey the information about this competition to all the students and peoples who are interested in computer security. Could you please distribute this email to all interested students. You can also distribute the event official poster which are available on our web site (http://www.hackus.org/public/pub_hackus_ecoles_fr.pdf and http://www.hackus.org/public/pub_hackus_ecoles_en.pdf)

You can also use printed version of the poster as advertisement.

Thank you for your help,

Gabriel Girard
Head
Computer science department
Université de Sherbrooke

Did you know…?
We are celebrating the launch of the 2010 Campus Community Appeal on Wednesday, February 3 between 7:30 and 9:30 am in Grant Hall with our Annual Kick-Off Breakfast. Please drop in and join us for a casual and complimentary pancake breakfast featuring live music, demonstrations, “celebrity servers”, and much more!

We will be entertained by a multitude of Queen’s talent, including the Queen’s Bands, the Queen’s Jazz Combo, The Caledonias, and more. Principal Woolf will be addressing the audience at 8 am.

There are also great door prizes to be won! Is your unit in need of a retreat? Come as a group and fill a table of eight to qualify to win a deluxe meeting package courtesy of The Ambassador Conference Resort.

The Appeal seeks to create awareness and raise funds to support the outstanding work taking place on campus – all staff, faculty and retirees are invited to attend regardless of whether or not they plan to make a donation. Special transportation arrangements have been made for West Campus and City Place faculty and staff to attend.

For more information on the Appeal, Kick-Off Breakfast and volunteer opportunities, please visit www.queensu.ca/communityappeal.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Chris Coupland (Student Awards), David McConomy (School of Business), Peter Taylor (Math & Statistics) and Jennifer Smith (Libraries)
Co-Chairs, Queen’s Campus Community Appeal 2010

Queen’s Human Media Lab makes board games electronic Revolutionary technology to be presented at MIT conference next week:

KINGSTON, ON – A groundbreaking technology developed at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada may make traditional board games a thing of the past.
The technology allows groups of friends or family members to play electronic games like they used to do board games: in a sociable and physical setting, placed together around a table. It also eases game controls by using affordances of regular cardboard pieces.
“This is no doubt the future of board games,” says Roel Vertegaal, an associate professor at Queen’s Human Media Lab. At first glance, the technology, by School of Computing graduate Mike Rooke and Professor Vertegaal, looks like a set of white, cardboard hexagons taken straight from the game board of Settlers of Catan. However, with the help of an overhead camera and a projector, each piece of cardboard becomes a mini-computer capable of displaying video images. The camera tracking and projection allow researchers at the HML to anticipate technologies 5-10 years down the road, when thin-film Organic LED screens will allow these kinds of board games to become practical. “We just started thinking about, ‘What if these new screens exist? What could we do with them?” says Professor Vertegaal. Board games are just the beginning. HML student Eric Akaoka and Professor Vertegaal have also been pioneering research on DisplayObjects. This technology allows any object to become a computer. The DisplayObjects workbench allows designers to carve future appliances out of interactive Styrofoam that immediately displays images, allowing evaluation with users at an earlier stage than is currently possible. “In the near future, a computer will have any shape or form, and iPhone-like computer displays will start appearing on any product. Projecting and tracking objects is just the beginning. These Organic User Interfaces will be embedded in real world interactions.”

Professor Vertegaal will present the revolutionary technology at the Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction conference at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday, January 25.

Astronaut David Williams feels people can learn more from NASA than just how to launch a person into space.

Dr. Williams, a former emergency room physician turned astronaut, is coming to Queen’s University to talk about how technology is developed by NASA and how those innovative principles should be applied to foster more creativity when developing biomedical technology. He will present the talk as part of the Distinguished Seminar Series hosted by the Queen’s School of Computing.

“It’s not every day Queen’s gets to host an astronaut,” says Queen’s associate computer science professor Gabor Fichtinger, who collaborates with Dr. Williams in forming a Canadian national centre for medical robotics, “The talk will be accessible all sorts of audiences, presented from the unique interdisciplinary perspective of an emergency room doctor turned astronaut.”

Dr. Williams was the director of the Department of Emergency Services at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre until June 1992 when he was one of four successful astronaut candidates picked by the Canadian Space Agency. He is currently the director of the McMaster Centre for Medical Robotics.

The talk takes place Thursday January 21 from 2:30 to 3:30 pm in Kingston Hall 201 and is open to anyone who wants to hear about NASA’s approach to translational medical technology development.

A Newsletter highlighting the School’s main events in 2009 was recently mailed to alumni and friends.

You can see it here.

I would like to thank all those who made the news, those who contributed articles and photos to the Newsletter, and our Editor Dean McKeown for putting it all together.

Selim

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Bram Adams who has been appointed by the Principal as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Computing. Congratulations Bram and best wishes.

Selim