The Troubled Relationship Between Computers And Ethics
John Sullins, Philosophy Department, Sonoma State University
11/10/2005
Computer technology presents us with uniquely challenging ethical problems. This is due to the fact that the rate of change in the power and ubiquity of computers greatly exceeds the ability of those outside of computer science to analyze and moderate the inevitable social impacts of those changes. Since the computer is a central technology that affects every one’s lives, choices computing professionals make in the design of computer systems deeply influence the way we live and interact with one another. Computer technology is designed to help us live a better life but often, what seems to computer engineers like an improvement in our lifestyle, is not perceived as such by users of that technology. Arguably what is needed to mitigate this problem is for those interested in ethics and social justice to become more computer savvy but more importantly it is crucial that students in computer science also be trained in the ethical and social impact of computing technology since they will be the ones with the real power to change society.
Interactive Rendering Of Planetary-Scale Geometry And Texture
Kenneth I. Joy, University of California, Davis
11/17/2005
The real-time display of huge geometry and imagery databases involves view-dependent approximations, typically through the use of precomputed hierarchies that are selectively refined at runtime. This talk focuses on the problem of terrain visualization, in which planetary databases involving billions of elevation and color values are displayed in PC graphics hardware at high frame rates. We show how innovative data structures, new out-of-core storage organization based on space-filling curves, and optimization using graphics processors can be used to solve this problem.
Prototyping In Game Development
Jason Shankel, Maxis/Electronic Arts, Walnut Creek
12/01/2005
Game development is both a technical and creative effort. Prototypes help us balance the complex interplay between creative inspiration and technical development specification. This talk describes the methods used in prototyping video games and discusses the role of prototyping in the larger game development cycle.
Computing And Using The Voronoi Diagram
Nina Amenta, University of California, Davis
02/16/2006
The Voronoi diagram of a set of points divides space into regions, each region consisting of the part of space closer to a particular input point p than to any other input point. It comes up in a wide variety of computational problems. In computer graphics, it is used to construct a polygonal surface given a set of point samples from the surface with no additional connectivity information -kind of a 3D connect-the-dots. This talk is about how the Voronoi diagram is computed, and how it can be used to solve this problem.
Supercomputing: Historical Perspective, Present Trends And Future Promises
Larry Lesser, PSSC Labs, Lake Forest, California
02/23/2006
PSSC Labs is a leading provider of high performance computing equipment to government, university and corporate organizations. Founder and CTO, Larry Lesser, has been involved with supercomputing technologies over the past 35 years. Mr. Lesser will overview the history of supercomputers, present developments including multi-core processors and high speed interconnects as well as provide some insight into the future of supercomputing including environmental and commodity limitations.