Closing Post

We would like to take the time to thank everyone who read our blog. We are done with our blog for the semester, and will be discontinuing it here on out. This experience has helped us gain a good understanding of how Blogger works and how to set up a blog. We have also gained a good understanding of how to track different blog metrics through the use of Google Analytics. From here we will take the data we collected from Google Analytics and connect it to Tableau. Tableau will allow use to visual the data we gathered. Again thanks to all our readers!

- The IT Perspective

Hello Sense: A Better Sleep

How well you perform during the day can greatly depend on what you do at night, or how you sleep. Sense by Hello is a new product that's aim is to help improve sleep. You simply place it on the stand next to your bed and it is able to monitor many things throughout the night. Watch the video below to get a quick understanding of it.

It is truly amazing how such a small object is able to capture all of this information while sitting a few feet from you. The product has 6 sensors that it uses to formulate the best nights sleep for you. These sensors are temperature, humidity, ambient light, microphone, proximity, and particulate. It also comes with a clip know as the Sleep Pill that attaches to your pillow to monitor your movement while sleeping.

Temperature is one of the biggest factors when it comes to a great nights sleep.  Many people struggle with cold or hot temperatures in their bedroom and struggle to sleep when the temperature is not where it should be. Sense matches the current temperature with the quality of sleep you are having and tells you exactly where you should set the thermostat to before you go to bed.

The Sense also knows when it should and shouldn't wake you up. Waking up during a heavy sleep from a loud ringtone or alarm may cause a person to feel tired or groggy. It tracks your sleep rhythm and wakes you up when you are in light sleep to a calming alarm. There are many more feature of the Sense that allow you to check how you slept throughout the night and what happened during certain times of the night. It gives you sleep scores and also shows you how your sleep has improved from the past few days or weeks.

It is almost hard to believe the types of products that are coming out in today's world. The Sense is just one of many items that companies have come up with to improve the quality of life. It is hard to imagine what other possible products could be made, but we will without a doubt see many more great ideas.


Posted by Austin Eller

Google Smart Car

To those that have heard the phrase "You're an awful driver," may be in luck within the next few years. Google is working on a self-driving car that would take most of the pressure off humans while driving. This car uses sensors to detect objects such as people or other vehicles from up to 200 yards away. It's GPS systems allows the car to know where it is at in the world as well so it will have a better understanding of the surroundings. Google also hopes that it will have the complete ability to predict what is going to happen, such as pedestrians or animals crossing streets.

Human error is the reason for 94% of vehicle accidents in the United States. This is what is motivating Google to make a car that would be able to drive itself both efficiently and safely. If Google can assure that these vehicles are safe, I am sure there would be a huge demand for the car, although I'm sure they wouldn't be too cheap. Google already has some vehicles driving around in Texas and California. They've driven over a total of 1 million miles!

The car isn't completely perfect though. One of Google's cars was pulled over in California for driving too slow. It was going 24 mph in a 35 mph zone. There was a passenger in the car, but no one was driving it, so the officer had to explain to the passenger what the vehicle had done wrong. In the end the officer decided not to give any tickets and let the car get off free. Google has a max limit of 25 mph on these cars currently so they don't go too fast through neighborhoods and scare people. In the future when they are more well known, Google plans on allowing them to go faster.

For complete information on this vehicle, you can go to here.

Posted by Austin Eller

Unanswered Internal Threat Questions

Recently I have been reading a decent amount of articles about intrusion detection systems, which seems to be a particularly hot topic with the all too frequent news of a database breaches.  Target, Ashley Madison, and Sony are just a few examples. Clearly, we are “losing the cyberwar.”  While external threats are common and tend to get plenty of publicity, internal threats are considered to be much more difficult to handle. I found an article about classifying internal threat levels especially interesting.  It declares that “[t]he challenges of preventing, detecting, and responding to data leakage propagated by authorized users, or insider threats, are among the most difficult facing security researchers and professionals today”. One fundamental issue is that the heuristics typically used to identify threats have yet to be fully regarded as ‘admissible’; current algorithms tend to both overestimate as well as underestimate. This is partly due to three undecided critical questions, which are unique to each information system: can a person’s intent be accurately characterized by monitoring and analyzing interactions with computing systems, is the malicious technical behavior of insiders unusual any more often than the behavior of non-malicious users, and is unusual behavior indicative of malicious intent? Being unable to determine these will likely cause an abundance of both type 1 and type 2 errors. Researchers today use various analytical or statistical methods, but they “still struggle to define the problem, much less demonstrate the operational validity of their solutions”. With further study on my part, it’ll be interesting to see how particular systems handle these inconsistencies, if at all.  

Huth, Carly L., David W. Chadwick, William R. Claycomb, and Ilsun You. "Guest Editorial: A Brief Overview of Data Leakage and Insider Threats - Springer." Information Systems Frontier, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. <http://link.spriner.com/article/10.1007/s10796-013-9419-8>.

Job Recruiters are using Artificial Intelligence to Search for Recruits

Link to original article:

The days of companies doing a simple Google search of a potential employee may be over. You always here that employers will Google your name to see what results they find, such as your Facebook page or you Twitter presence. Companies have now found a way to combine a search where they can catch a glimpse of your personal profile, and search for those employees that match what they are looking for in a recruit. This beats searching around individual sites to see what information is available about you. This is more of a one stop shop for them. A newer company called Connectifier developed a product that uses search technology and machine learning to help assist them along the hiring process. Basically what Connectifier does is they sift through millions of pages of social networks and sites that display your public information, and they build a profile from this data. This is done through the use of many complex algorithms. Millions of profiles have already been developed, and the number continues to grow. Recruitment sites like LinkedIn are starting to follow suit with this new technology. Connectifier is currently raising money to continue to develop this platform and improve it.

What I take away from this article is that you need to be extra aware of what you put out there on the Internet for everyone to see. Yeah you may think you are being funny and you don't think it won't make a difference, but news like this about this search technology makes you double think before you post a potentially offensive tweet or picture. When looking to get into the workforce professors and others always tell you to take what you do on social networks seriously, because there are companies out there that do things like this where they want to see how recruits act based on actions on the Internet. I think this technology is a good option to look at for companies. I don't think it should be a major decider in choosing a recruit, but it should give them a way of learning a more about who they may potentially hire. I think the read they get from you in a face to face interview is much more important, which makes me say these online profiles should not be taken as a major decision factor. They should be used to enhance their understanding of that person. I find it interesting what privacy laws and other acts these companies may run into when using this search technology. It sounds like all the data they are using is public, so it will be at the discretion of the recruit to limit their own personal data. My recommendation would be to go back and update your social profiles to make them more professional looking and appealing to recruiters. Be conscience of what you are doing on social network sites before you decide to post something stupid that may come back to bite you in the you know what. Take what you do seriously, and always be aware of what you are posting.

Siri

So many people in today's world have iPhones. A lot of these users love to use the "Siri" feature.  Siri is a feature that allows you to give certain commands and ask questions. Many knows how this feature works, as you just open the feature and talk into the microphone. Installed in the phone is a recognizer that decides whether or not your command or question can be decided within your phone or by your phone. If it may not be done within the phone, it will then connect to a network to try and finish the command.

The fact that Siri can understand what yo are saying is amazing in itself. The interpretation is done within the phone as it first estimates the vowels and consonants for each letter spoken.  It will then use those estimates create a pool of words with these consonants. From these words there are a series of sentence estimates. The phone will then decide which sentence makes the most sense and use that sentence as the command. Siri isn't perfect though, and also comes up with some very interesting answers as you can see from the pictures below.

Older functions of Siri, which are still available today, were simple things such as answering basic questions, sending a text message, setting an alarm, or calling a contact on your phone. You can also ask Siri what the name of a song is while recording it for a few seconds. Newer things that Siri can do come from the new iOS 9 update that is available on iPhones.  For example, let's say you took photos a few months ago back in July.  All you have to do is simply ask Siri to show you the photos you took in July and they will pop up on your screen. You can also have her remind you of something at a certain time of day or specific time.  She will even open up a map for you once you get in your car hours from now if your phone is somehow connected with your car. With your phone being able to connect to many things today, you can also command Siri to turn of lights in your house or turn on things such as the TV! Also, the maps feature is huge for today's world, as it has almost completely gotten ridden of paper maps to use while trying to find something.  The new iOS 9 now has transit information in the maps application and all you have to do is ask Siri for transit directions and she will show you a map of public transit information. Siri is also available on Apple tablets. It is truly amazing how Siri can do the things she does, and it has made life a lot easier for a lot of people with phones who struggle to find certain things in the settings or other parts of their phones.  Other technology companies that make phones have started implementing things very similar to Siri into their phones. It is a feature that many use daily and don't even think twice about how the whole process works.



Published by Austin Eller

A Very Brief Overview of AI in Assistive Technology

                I found an intriguing article by Martha E. Pollack that emphasizes the socioeconomic concerns with regard to an aging population, in contrast to the last blog post from the IT Perspective. The article began by establishing the need for further innovation in intelligent assistive technology and follows through to survey some of the technology being deployed. (I should also mention that this research is a few years old, so some of the information is a little dated; however, the concepts remain very relevant .)

Currently, over 10 percent of the world’s population is over the age of 60. Despite the overall problem of worldwide population growth, there will continue to be an disproportionate increase of the old and the oldest old age groups. This is especially a concern considering the strong correlation between age and cognitive impairment involving Alzheimer’s, in particular. There will also be fewer young people to assist in their endeavors.  The author states that “although the shift is most dramatic in the more industrialized regions of the world, a significant growth in the percentage of older adults is expected in virtually every country.”

                With advances in technology that will help assist, compensate, and assess the impaired, society as a whole may become sounder.  After all, institutionalization comes as a great financial burden.  The article claims that over 132 billion dollars are spent on U.S. nursing home bills a year, of those 60 percent are covered by the government.  Many of the elderly prefer to age at home, but fail in performing everyday activities or feel socially isolated. The process of aging is quite difficult for the caregivers as well. Many people do not have the available time, and even then struggle to be consistently attentive. It is often more feasible to rely on today’s technology even with non-computerized inventions such as lift chairs or ergonomic handles.  Nonetheless, there is much AI –based research being performed with the goal of curbing some of the difficulties involved with cognitive and physical impairments.

                As I implied, research can be placed into three main categories:  those that assist, compensate, or assess.  With advances it will be easier to assure safety in performing daily activities by assisting or assessing deviations. Systems may even warn the user or caregiver of any errors. If for instance, a person falls or forgets to take their medicine, a caregiver’s phone could be called. Activity monitoring is essential in any of the methods.

                One method is using radio frequency identification tags. RFID chips are definitely a major concern when it comes to privacy, but the convenience in data collecting is tremendous. By tagging objects or clothes, detailed data can be collected about the user’s interactions, locations, and physical well-being. This way a system can infer specific daily activities. Most technology used for recognition use dynamic Bayesian networks that filter and derive probabilities. For example, the PROACT uses a DBN and the user wear s a glove that includes an RFID reader. Such as making tea can be broken down into a three-step process. In step two the system may derive that there is a high probability of using a tea kettle. Time can be monitored along with it. Based on trends, the system can target unusual activity.

                Because wandering is a significant concern, systems such as Opportunity Knocks employ GPS tracking. The system may learn typical behavior and preferences. Deviations can be spotted based on normal trends. The IMP or intelligent mobility platform uses similar techniques. It uses a “semi-Markov” model having three layers:  metric position, topology, and current activity. This system makes a map as it goes through a partially observable environment and monitors trends. A user can then select rooms/locations for sequentially displayed directions—and of course, it uses a large arrow to show the current direction needed.

        Planning systems are in high demand as well. Many of the elderly simply struggle to remember what they need to do next.  Interesting enough, many modern systems don’t even require exact times to be inputted.  If a person is typically awake and eating at 8 a.m. every morning, schedules can be shifted accordingly or a caregiver may be notified with lack of activity. If a person needs to take a pill an hour after eating, then it can be scheduled based on when sensors find the user has eaten. Some even will avoid specific times that are normally set aside. If a user likes a particular television show, the ‘eat’ notification may occur before or after the typical time. The current focus is for them to be even more dynamic. Critics argue that the systems are too fixed with regard to the decision logic; problems may occur if a user becomes ill or the user ages more.

       Personally, I had barely considered that some of the elderly struggle to simply following sequences. Simple tasks, like washing hands, have become not all that simple. Many try to dry their hands before even washing them. I also think advances in assistive technology will revolve around AI. Nonetheless, I remain generally unconcerned. As the need for the technology increases, I am confident that even better solutions will be employed. Hopefully the technology can then be applied to an even wider audience, further improving everyday conveniences.