Archives for category: googletechtalks
Testing Chromium
Google Tech Talk July 28, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by James Hawkins. The Chromium project has 200+ committers and over 100 commits a day. That pace of development requires extensive testing in order to achieve acceptable stability. In this talk, I'll go over the best practices for testing in Chromium.
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263
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Time:
24:31
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On the Design of Bayes Consistent Loss Functions for Classification
Google Tech Talk July 30, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Hamed Masnadi-Shirazi. The machine learning problem of classifier design is studied from the perspective of probability elicitation, in statistics. This shows that the standard approach of proceeding from the specification of a loss, to the minimization of conditional risk is overly restrictive. It is shown that a better alternative is to start from the specification of a functional form for the minimum conditional risk, and derive the loss function. This has various consequences of practical interest, such as showing that 1) the widely adopted practice of relying on convex loss functions is unnecessary, and 2) many new losses can be derived for classification problems. These points are illustrated by the derivation of novel losses which are not convex, but do not compromise the computational tractability of classifier design, and are robust to the contamination of data with outliers. It is argued that such robustness requires loss functions that penalize both large positive and negative margins. Also, the connection between risk minimization and probability elicitation is extended to the cost sensitive setting in a manner that guarantees consistency with the cost-sensitive Bayes risk, and associated Bayes decision rule and a new procedure for learning cost- sensitive classifiers is proposed. Hamed Masnadi-Shirazi is a PhD student in the Statistical Visual Computing Lab at the University of California, San Diego. He <b>…</b>
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2
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Time:
01:07:43
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Worlds Upon Worlds: An Illustrated Talk by Toby Lester
Google Tech Talk August 23, 2010 ABSTRACT Toby Lester — a longtime editor and writer for The Atlantic, and the author of The Fourth Part of the World (2009) — will be here to talk about what may well be the greatest map ever made: the Waldseemüller world map of 1507. A giant wall map recently purchased by the Library of Congress for the astonishing sum of $10 million, the map's main claim to fame is that it gave America its name. But the map also represents a number of other important firsts in the history of cartography, and in the larger history of ideas. It was the first map to show the New World surrounded by water, and thus to suggest the existence of the Pacific Ocean; it was one of the very first maps to lay out a picture of the world in a full 360 degrees of longitude; and it was the first map to present the contours of the world's continents and oceans largely as we know them today. It was, in many ways, the mother of all modern world maps — and yet, mysteriously, it was made years before Europeans first saw the Pacific or circumnavigated the globe. With the help of a weird and wonderful variety of early maps and diagrams, Lester will show how the Waldseemüller map for the first time brought together elements of many different ancient and medieval cartographic traditions and used them to create a map not only of space but also time — a map that Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, after reading about it in The Fourth Part of the World, described as "a <b>…</b>
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359
8
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Time:
54:15
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A General Approach to Discovering, Registering, and Extracting Features from Raster Maps
Google Tech Talk August 25, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Craig Knoblock. Maps can be a great source of information for a given geographic region, but they can be difficult to find and even harder to process. A significant problem is that many interesting and useful maps are only available in raster format, and even worse many maps have been poorly scanned and they are often compressed with lossy compression algorithms. Furthermore, for many of these maps there is no meta data providing the geographic coordinates, scale, or projection. Previous research on map processing has developed techniques that typically work on maps from a single map source. In contrast, we have developed a general approach to finding and processing street maps. This includes techniques for discovering maps online, extracting geographic and textual features from maps, using the extracted features to determine the geographic coordinates of a map, and aligning maps with imagery. The resulting system can automatically discover maps for a given region and then process the maps to produce accurately aligned road and text layers. Craig Knoblock is the Director of Information Integration at the Information Sciences Institute, a unit of the University of Southern California (USC), and a Research Professor in the USC Computer Science Department. Dr. Knoblock is also a founder and Chief Scientist of Fetch Technologies, a web extraction and integration provider, and of Geosemble Technologies, which develops <b>…</b>
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5
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Time:
01:00:10
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The Data Game: Visualizing IP & Gambling with Quova
Google Tech Talk August 25, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Perry Tancred and Tobias Speckbacher. Quova IP geolocation experts Tobias Speckbacher and Perry Tancredi walk us through homegrown intelligence gathering methodologies, the state of the global gaming and gambling industry, and then show us what the two look like when they meet in a dark alley. Through the combination of a stealth visualization project undertaken by the company with Stamen Designs, and crafty use of Horizon Graphs, we see hidden data patterns that reveal novel findings. Tobias Speckbacher, VP of Emerging Technologies Tobias Speckbacher has a passion for technology and innovation. He joined Quova in May 2000, and has since played an instrumental role in building the company, deploying Quova's core data and cloud services infrastructure. A member of the early research engineering team, Tobias laid the groundwork Quova's geolocation technology. He also holds several patents, with additional patents pending. Tobias' current responsibilities include working with pre-product launch companies to augment Quova's data processing infrastructure, introducing bleeding edge technologies to the product engineering process and prototyping new product ideas. Prior to joining Quova, Tobias worked for Interliant, a large web hosting company, Tobias handled OEM mass web-hosting infrastructure for Dell Computer Corporation as a systems engineer where he programmed database driven tools from concept to product release <b>…</b>
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6
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Time:
45:59
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Channels & Conflict: Response to Digital Media Distribution, Impact on Sales and Internet Piracy
Google Tech Talk August 17, 2010 ABSTRACT "Channels & Conflict: Consumer Response to Digital Media Distribution, and its Impact on Physical Sales and Internet Piracy" Presented by Michael D. Smith, with introduction by Hal Varian. The availability of digital channels for media distribution has raised several important questions for marketers, notably whether digital distribution channels will cannibalize physical sales and whether legitimate digital distribution channels will dissuade consumers from using (illegitimate) digital piracy channels. We examine these two questions using a series of "natural experiments" involving changes in the distribution of media on digital channels. Our results suggest that (1) online "free" distribution can complement legitimate purchases of media goods, (2) legitimate digital distribution channels can reduce the demand for piracy, and (3) that digital distribution is unlikely to cannibalize sales in physical channels in the short-term. Michael D. Smith is an Associate Professor of Information Systems and Marketing and co-director of the Center for Digital Media Research at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Smith's research relates to analyzing structure and competition in online markets and substitution effects between legitimate digital distribution channels, piracy channels, and physical channels for media products. His research in this area has been published by outlets including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Sloan Management <b>…</b>
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3
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Time:
44:25
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Cloud-Based Automated Software Reliability Services
Google Tech Talk July 22, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Professor George Candea people.epfl.ch This talk proposes cloud-based automated software reliability services (SRS), a step toward making testing and debugging of code as easy as using webmail. SRS is automatic, without human involvement from the service user's or provider's side; this is unlike today's "testing as a service" businesses, which employ humans to write tests. First, I will outline four of the SRS components we envision: a "home edition" on-demand testing service for consumers to verify the software they are about to install on their PC or mobile device; a "programmer's sidekick" enabling developers to thoroughly and promptly test their code with minimal upfront resource investment; a public "certification service," akin to Underwriters Labs, that independently assesses the reliability, safety, and security of software; and an "automated debugging" service that helps developers fix code based on bug reports from the field. Then I will present in detail execution synthesis, the technique that makes automated debugging (the latter SRS component) a reality. Given a program and a bug report, execution synthesis combines static analysis and symbolic execution to "synthesize" a thread schedule and various required program inputs that cause the reported bug to manifest. The synthesized execution can then be played back deterministically in a regular debugger, like gdb. We have found this determinism to be <b>…</b>
Views:
308
3
ratings

Time:
01:16:08
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Hobbyist to Flickr Celeb: Building a Career with Social Networking (Kevin Meredith aka lomokev)
Google Tech Talk August 11, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Kevin Meredith. Kevin is a British photographer who's become somewhat of a celebrity through his photostream and his colorful personality on Flickr. He's also an author, having published 3 books to date (Hot Shots, Spirit and Don't Think Just Shoot) and runs photography courses. He's coming to Google to introduce his new book: Photo Op: 52 Weekly Ideas for Creative Image-Making and talk about how he built his career on social networking. Kevin's photostream www.flickr.com bio lomokev.com & blog lomokev.com
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5
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Time:
54:44
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Remote Mentoring with "We Teach Science"
Google Tech Talk August 25, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Aragon Burlingham and Dina Moskowitz. There is a crisis occurring in Science and Math education on both a state and national level. In 2009, only 30% of California students scored at the proficient range or higher on state Algebra tests. California is the 8th largest economy in the world, with Silicon Valley the nation's epicenter of science and technology, yet our middle school students rank 45th in math and almost last in science understanding in the nation. This talk, by the We Teach Science Foundation, will outline the foundation's plan to combat this serious problem–the Remote Tutoring and Mentoring Program (RTM). In one hour per week, professionals from the STEM fields are providing a gift of mentorship to public school students, without even leaving their desks. Come find out what it's all about! History of the Organization In 2008, Aragon Burlingham left the field of engineering to focus on his life-long passion of enhancing the math and science learning experiences of children. After a stint of volunteering in a Pacifica, CA public school, he recognized the students' need for personalized attention. He sought to develop a one-on-one mentorship program using STEM professionals as volunteers. Originally, the program was face-to-face; a more traditional mentoring program. However, with the time constraints placed upon professionals, he realized the best way to connect students and mentors was online. Thus, the <b>…</b>
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3
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Time:
19:51
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Playing to Lose: AI and "Civilization" (Soren Johnson)
Google Tech Talk August 26, 2010 ABSTRACT Presented by Soren Johnson. Artificial intelligence is crucial to any strategy game, providing a compelling opponent for solo play. While many of the challenges of AI development are technical, significant design challenges exist as well. Can the AI behave like a human? Should it? Should the game design be adjusted to accommodate the limitations of the AI? How do we make the AI fun? Should the AI cheat? If so, how much? Do we even want the AI to win? This session suggests some possible answers to these questions using the "Civilization" series as a case study. Ultimately, developers must choose between a "good" AI and a "fun" one, with an understanding of the trade-offs inherent when deciding between the two. Soren Johnson was the lead designer and AI programmer for Sid Meier's Civilization IV. After working at Firaxis Games for seven years, Soren joined EA Maxis in 2007 to work on Spore as a lead designer/programmer. He is currently building web-based games with EA2D, such as the moddable strategystation.com and other unannounced projects. He also writes a design column for Game Developer Magazine and is on the GDC Advisory Board. His thoughts on game design can be found at www.designer-notes.com. Download slides to this presentation here www.designer-notes.com
Views:
202
2
ratings

Time:
01:00:29
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