Top 50 Internet of Things Applications

Libelium listed top 50 Internet of Things sensor applications ranking which include Smart Cities, Smart Environment, Smart Water, Smart Metering, Security and Emergencies, Retail, Logistics, Industrial Control, Smart Agriculture, Smart Animal Farming, Domestic and Home Automation, e-Health. On top of the list is the Smart Parking that can reduce the possibility of your car being towed. 

Smart Cities

1. Smart Parking - Monitoring of parking spaces availability in the city.
2. Structural health - Monitoring of vibrations and material conditions in buildings, bridges and historical monuments.
3. Noise Urban Maps- Sound monitoring in bar areas and centric zones in real time.
4. Smartphone Detection - Detect iPhone and Android devices and in general any device which works with WiFi or Bluetooth interfaces.
5. Eletromagnetic Field Levels - Measurement of the energy radiated by cell stations and and WiFi routers.
6. Traffic Congestion - Monitoring of vehicles and pedestrian levels to optimize driving and walking routes.
7. Smart Lighting - Intelligent and weather adaptive lighting in street lights.
8. Waste Management - Detection of rubbish levels in containers to optimize the trash collection routes.
9. Smart Roads - Intelligent Highways with warning messages and diversions according to climate conditions and unexpected events like accidents or traffic jams.

read more at Libelium

Can we convert video images into sound?

Most of us know that sound comes from vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears.But, can we recreate sound from video images? Abe Davis takes one step further to proof his method to these hidden properties. A software called "the motion microscope" finds the subtle motion of a video and amplifies them so that it become large enough for us to see. Thus, it can be used as touch sensor to monitor breath and pulse. The same concept can be applied to what we hear. The motion is used to capture the vibration of sound and turn everything that we see into microphone. Watch the video below:

Reference:

Abe Davis, Michael Rubinstein, Neal Wadhwa, Gautham Mysore, Fredo Durand,William T. Freeman "The Visual Microphone: Passive Recovery of Sound from Video", ACM Transactions on Graphics (Proc. SIGGRAPH, 2014,   Volume 33, Number 4, Pages 79:1-79:10

The Internet of Things New Direction

The IoT is advancing and beginning to visualize a very different world. System architects think that it could change change Things, data centers, and even the Internet. The sensor selection can be one thing to watch since a single camera may be able to collect more data, more reliably, than a swarm of simple sensors. If camera is chosen, should we move the raw data up to the cloud for analysis? Or do they design-in substantial computing power close to the sensors? If your algorithm is highly intolerant of latency, you have no choice but to rely on local computing by having hardware accelerators such as GPU, FPGA, or Xeon-Phi chips. But if you can tolerate some latency between sensor input and system response, the question becomes how much, and with how much variation. Here, the limitations of the Internet will become an issue.

Read more

Postgraduate Potluck Event @ FCSIT, UM

A potluck is a gathering of people where each person or group of people contributes a dish of food prepared by the person or the group, to be shared among the larger gathered group. (Wikipedia).

The Department of Computer System & Technology has successfully organized Postgraduate Potluck Event on the 9th April 2015. The goal of the event is to chill, relax and socialize among Postgraduate students and supervisors while enjoying good food brought by themselves. Other than tasting different types of food from different cultures, this event aims to bridge the gap between supervisors and students, cultivate team spirit and recharge positive attitude. Great thanks to all who have help to make the event a great success.

One head cannot carry an entire roof alone and that friendship means adding value. 

When cobwebs unite, they can tie up a lion. 

Ants united will drive a dead elephant to their abode

Malaysia Public Research Grants Workshop

We managed to conduct grant preparation workshop on the 1st April 2015 @ The Cube, Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya. The purpose of the workshop is to prepare grant proposal for public grants and to expose the post graduate student with grant application. Grants are normally divided into two categories i.e Fundamental and Applied. Fundamental grants focus on fundamental research which questions the proposed algorithm, methodology or approach whether they will work or not. The Applied grants on the other hand looks at how the proposed method can be applied to certain area. Therefore, it is very important to choose the right title and objectives according to the grant applied. The Applied grants are also divided into several stages such as idea, prototype, pre-commercialization and commercialization.  There are also grants which target multidisciplinary research.    

In Malaysia, 2 main public grant comes from Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). Below are the grants

Ministry of Education (MOE)  (MOE Grant Info, applied through mygrants.gov.my)

• Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS)
• Long Term Research Grant Scheme (LRGS)
• Exploratory Research Grant Scheme (ERGS)
• Prototype Development Research Grant Scheme (PRGS)
• Geran Sanjungan Penyelidikan (GSP-KPM)
• Research Acculturation Grant Scheme (RAGS)
• Niche Research Grant Scheme (NRGS-KPM)
• Trans Disciplinary Research Grant Scheme (TRGS)
• Research Acculturation Collaborative Effort (RACE)

Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) (MOSTI grant info)

• Science Fund
• Techno Fund
• Inno Fund
• Flagship Program

If you're interested to have collaborative joint research project (national/international), please do not hesitate to contact us.

Talk on Approximate Computing & Its Research Potential

Knowledge Sharing Session

Date/Day : 26 March 2015/Thursday
Time       : 12.00 noon until 2.00 p.m
Venue     : The Cubes, Block A, Faculty of Computer Science & IT, University of Malaya
Speaker  :  Dr. Rehan Hafiz

Title: 
Approximate Computing & Its Research Potential

Abstract:

Power & energy is increasingly a first-order concern in computer systems. Approximate computing is an emerging computing paradigm that exploits energy-accuracy trade-offs. This talk shall discuss the various levels at which approximate computing is being explored. There are a number of challenges however when designing reliable systems based upon approximate computing. These include: Isolating & identifying parts of a program that must be precise, defining the correct matrices for accuracy and exploiting the application domain for error resilience.

BIODATA

Dr. Rehan Hafiz is an Assistant Professor (HEC Approved Supervisor)
Department of Electrical Engineering
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (SEECS)
National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST)
NUST Campus H-12, Islamabad


Research Interest:

My research revolves around algorithm development and their digital implementations. Some of my research projects can be broadly classified as:

• Computer Vision / Digital Image / Video / Signal Processing
• Video Mosaics, Image registration, Video Surveillance
• Immersive Environments & Interactivity
• FPGA based system design
• Digital balanced detection for multichannel optical tomography
• VHDL system development for real time Image registration
• Algorithm development
• Game simulation for battlefield simulation
• Analysis of equation generation for GSM A5/2 encryption
• Real time noise suppression algorithm for Laser based spectroscopic and Tomographic application

Specialization:
Digital Image Processing, Computer Vision, Digital System Design

Mobile Application Competition (MyAppsTEC 2015)

INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN APPS ASIA – UM MOBILE APPS DEVELOPMENT COMPETITION (MyAppsTEC 2015)

Faculty of Computer Science & Information Technology, University of Malaya is proudly organizing the Mobile Applications Development Competition challenge, co-supported by AppAsia Sdn Bhd. The competition serves as a platform that allows young talents from schools, colleges and universities in Malaysia to exhibit their creativity and innovative ideas in developing mobile applications.

Participants have the chance to win cash prizes and medals.  This competition is open to all students from schools and higher education institutions, as follows:

- Category A : School/Polytechnic/Matriculation/IPTA/IPTS – Idea Generation of Mobile Application (Fee: RM100)

- Category B :  School/Polytechnic/Matriculation – Mobile Application (Fee: RM200)

- Category C : IPTA/IPTS – Mobile Application (Fee: RM200)

If you or your students have ideas and skills that needs exposure, MyAppsTEC is the right platform to exhibit your innovation. Important dates are as follows:

Registration of products/ideas: 17th February 2015 to 15th April 2015

Competition Day: 9th May 2015

The event will be held at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology (FCSIT),

University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

For more information, email us at: myappstec@gmail.com or visit our Facebook at

www.facebook.com/MyAppsTEC or website at URL: http://myappstec.fsktm.um.edu.my  .

Thank you.