Archive for the ‘COMPUTER SCIENCE’ Category

30 Apr

Social media make people smarter

Posted by seanduke in COMPUTER SCIENCE, HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, THE SUNDAY TIMES. Tagged: , , , , , .


There may be those that think Twitter and other social media are part of a general ‘dumbing down’ of society, yet the emerging evidence suggests that social media are making people smarter.

Professor Andrew Jackson, of the Theoretical Ecology Group at TCD, and his PhD student, Luke McNally, have devised ingenious methods of testing whether increasing social interactions by media like Twitter, makes us smarter.

They created ‘digital brains’ that played games that replicated how people interact in society, over and over again, for a period of time that equated to 50,000 human generations. The results were fascinating.

LISTEN: Interview with Andrew Jackson

Broadcast on Science Spinning on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 16-04-2012

READ: The article below appeared in The Sunday Times on 12-04-2012

20 Apr

‘Ambient assisted living’ research at CLARITY can improve life for the elderly

Posted by seanduke in ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY, COMPUTER SCIENCE. Tagged: , , , , , , .


There are a number of ways that devices connected to the web can help improve the quality of life and health of the elderly. This picture depicts a 2012 trial of ‘ambient assisted technology’ by Siemens in the homes of people aged 50 or over in Potsdam, Germany (credit: Siemens)

Technology connected to the web can help improve the quality of life of older people and also act as an important monitor on their health.

That’s according to Professor Gregory O’Hare, based at UCD’s CLARITY: Centre for Sensor Web Technologies.

Ambient assisted living is the term giving to the linking of web-enabled devices that can do everything from sending out a warning to a GP, if an older person hasn’t moved, to reminding them that it’s time to watch their favourite TV show.

LISTEN: Interview with Prof Gregory O’Hare

Broadcast on Science Spinning on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 19-04-2012

30 Mar

Young Irish scientist describes work at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab

Posted by seanduke in COMPUTER SCIENCE, YOUNG SCIENTISTS. Tagged: , , , , , .


The human-like robot, pictured here, called COG, is one of the exciting projects under development at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the US (Credit: Sam Ogden)

Ireland has many promising and talented young researchers. One of those is Dr James McDermott, who has just returned to the UCD following a stint at the famous MIT Computer Science Artificial Intelligence Lab.

James, who is based at the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL) is working in the ‘exploding’ area of evolutionary computation. This is the field where computer scientists are gaining inspiration from Darwinian evolution to design advanced computers that can better learn, change and evolve.

We discussed the latest developments in evolutionary computation and artificial intelligence with James, as well as his experience of working with some of the world’s most talented computer scientists at MIT.

LISTEN: Interview with Dr James McDermott

Broadcast on Science Spinning on 103.2 Dublin City FM on 22.03.2012

9 Jun

Cloud Computing; Living on Mars

Posted by seanduke in COMPUTER SCIENCE, SPACE, TECHNOLOGY. Tagged: , , , , .


Living on Mars will involve recycling of human waste and making use of the planet’s resources (Credit: NASA)

LISTEN HERE:  Cloud Computing, Living on Mars

Broadcast on 103.2 Dublin City FM, Science Spinning with Seán Duke, on 02/06/2011

To contact the show email: sciencespinning@dublincityfm.ie

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