Modeling Application Usage Visually
Google engEDU
37 min – Apr 24, 2006

Google TechTalks
April 24, 2006

Scott Barber
Scott Barber is the CTO of PerfTestPlus, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Workshop on Performance and Reliability (WOPR). Scott’s particular specialties are testing and analyzing performance for complex systems, developing customized testing methodologies, group facilitation and authoring instructional materials.

ABSTRACT
Modeling application usage is more than just parsing log files and calculating page frequencies. Whether we are analyzing navigation path effectiveness, planning for scenario testing, documenting performance test workload models or mapping services or objects to user activity having a single, intuitive picture to reference makes the job easier.

In this session, we’ll explore a highly adaptable method for visualizing application usage and how to use this model to improve cross-functional team communication without requiring team members to invest time learning some new fad of a modeling language that they’ll probably never use again. This method references UCMLâ„¢ which has been described as "what collaboration diagrams should have been." Read the rest of this entry »

Stanford Experts on Climate Change and Carbon Trading
Google engEDU
1 hr 42 min – Jan 27, 2006

Google TechTalks
January 27, 2006

Thomas C. Heller and Stephen H. Schneider

Abstract
Please join two distinguished Stanford Professors, Dr. Stephen Schneider and Professor Thomas Heller, for a discussion on climate change and the emerging carbon trading markets. Dr. Schneider is one of the world’s leading scientific experts of climate change (his name is cited on all those climate change charts and graphs we’ve seen so far). Dr. Heller has extensive experience with policy and negotiations surrounding climate change and sustainable development. Professor Heller also recently served as Sergey’s host at the recent UN Climate Change Conference meeting in Montreal where Prof. Heller proved his indepth knowledge of thenuances of legislative works, such as the Kyoto Protocol, and the mechanisms that are currently being employed.

This tech talk will be different than our previous climate change talks. These men have helped steered the international course of policy, scientific verifications and the overall consensus on the existence of climate change. They both have plenty to say about what the failures and successes have been along the way, and what their predictions for the future of climate change policy will be. Email me if you have any questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Advanced Topics in Programming Languages Series: Python Design Patterns (Part 1)
Google engEDU
59 min – Mar 14, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 14, 2007

ABSTRACT

Design Patterns must be studied in the context on the language in which they’ll get implemented (the Gang of Four made that point very strongly in their book, though almost everybody else seems not to have noticed:-). This talk explores several categories of classic "elementary" DPs in a Python context — Creational, Masquerading, Adaptation, and Template. Read the rest of this entry »

Visual 3D modeling of real-world objects and scenes from images
Google EngEDU
1 hr 3 min – May 1, 2007

Google Tech Talks
May 1, 2007

ABSTRACT

Images and videos form a rich source of information about the visual world. The extraction of 3D information from images is an important research problem in computer vision and graphics. The ubiquitous presence of cameras and the tremendous advances of processing and communication technologies yields important opportunities and challenges in those areas.

My work has focused on developing flexible techniques for recovering 3D shape, motion and appearance from images. A first example of this is an approach to recover photo-realistic 3D models of static objects or scenes from videos recorded with a hand-held camera or on a moving vehicle. A key aspect of our approach is the ability to also recover the geometric and photometric calibration of the camera from the image data so that our techniques can also work with uncalibrated consumer cameras or archive photographs. Towards the end of my talk, I will also briefly discuss approaches to capture dynamic scenes, both from single and multiple cameras. Applications ranging from archaeology and 3D urban modeling, to special effects and 3D tele-medecine will be used to illustrate our work. Read the rest of this entry »

Algorithmic Mechanism Design
Google engEDU
57 min – Aug 15, 2007

Google Tech Talks
August 15, 2007

ABSTRACT

One of the challenges that the Internet raises is the necessity of designing distributed protocols for settings where the participating computers are owned and operated by different owners with different goals. Over the last decade or so there has been much research that aims to address these issues using ideas taken from the micro-economic field of mechanism design. In this talk I will survey the current state of the field: how mechanism design is applied in computational settings, how far can classical ideas go, and what are the challenges for further research. Among the applications discussed will be combinatorial auctions, cost sharing, scheduling, and routing in networks. Read the rest of this entry »