Computer Science: The best fun there is? @ Fareham Byte

Fareham College
Computer
Science:
Rikki Prince (ECS teaching fellow)
Electronics and Computer Science
University of Southampton
The best fun there is?

“Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable
from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke

“Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable
from magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke
“It's still magic even if you
know how it's done.”
Terry Pratchett

How much
information
per pixel?
 Red x Green x Blue
 8 bits x 8 bits x 8 bits
 28 x 28 x 28 colours
 224 colours
 210 x 210 x 24 colours
 ~ 103 x 103 x 16 colours
 ~ 16 million colours
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Who thought of bits?
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Claude E Shannon
Claude Shannon (1948).
"A Mathematical Theory of
Communication".
Famous book:
Warren Weaver and Claude
Elwood Shannon (1963). The
Mathematical Theory of
Communication

The Ultimate Machine!
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Shannon was
amazing!

How many bytes
per picture?
 3 bytes per pixel
 10 megapixels per picture
 30 megabytes per picture
 A picture from my 10 mp camera says: ~ 5
megabytes
 Yes! It is in JPEG format. (Joint Photographic
Experts Group)
 Compression! Fareham College

The LZW Algorithm
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Abraham Lempel
Jacob Ziv
Terry Welch

Detecting Edges and Circles
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Detecting Edges and Circles
 Edges
 Sobel
 Circles
 Hough
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Conway’s Game of Life
 Grid of “cells” (B/W pixels)
 For each cell look at 8 neighbours
1. “Die” if < 2 neighbours
2. “Live” if 2-3 neighbours
3. “Die” if > 3 neighbours
4. “Born” if exactly 3 neighbours
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Schelling’s Segregation
 Grid of “houses” (red,
green, black pixels)
 Every “agent” has a “same-
type preference” p%
 Rules
 Select agent at random
 If % of neighbours that
are same type <p%
move to random empty
house
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Processing + Arduino
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Fareham College
Computer Science
 Theoretical foundations of information
and computation
 Practical techniques for their
implementation and application in
computer systems.
 The systematic study of algorithmic
processes that describe and transform
information
 What can be (efficiently) automated?

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Sub-fields of CS
computer graphics - specific results
computational complexity theory - properties of
computational problems
Challenges in implementing computations:
- programming language theory studies approaches to
describing computations
- computer programming applies specific programming
languages to solve specific computational problems
- human-computer interaction focuses on the challenges in
making computers and computations useful, usable, and
universally accessible to people.

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Information Technology
(IT)
“the study, design, development,
implementation, support or management
of computer-based information systems,
particularly software applications and
computer hardware.”
Deals with the use of electronic computers and
computer software to convert, store, protect,
process, transmit, and securely retrieve
information.

There is really a spectrum!
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Theory
(Maths)
Applied
(Vocational)

Fareham College
Part I, Semester 1
 COMP1004 Programming Principles (Compulsory)
 COMP1007 Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science
(Compulsory)
 INFO1010 Personal and Professional Development
(Compulsory)
 MATH1014 Engineering Mathematics for Computer
Science (Compulsory)
 COMP1002 Computer Systems and Applications
(Optional)
 ELEC1013 Introduction to Digital Electronics (Optional)

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Part I, Semester 2
 COMP1001 Introduction to Formal Methods
(Compulsory)
 COMP1003 Advanced Programming (Compulsory)
 COMP1006 Computer Architecture (Compulsory)
 COMP1008 Software Engineering (Compulsory)
 COMP1009 Data Structures and Algorithms
(Compulsory)
 COMP1005 System Administration Tools and Techniques
(Compulsory)

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Part II, Semester 1
 COMP2002 Computational Systems (Compulsory)
 COMP2006 Human-Computer Interaction (Compulsory)
 COMP2007 Software Analysis and Design (Compulsory)
 COMP2009 Operating Systems (Compulsory)
 COMP2010 Compiler Engineering (Compulsory)
 INFO2009 Professional & Legal Issues (Compulsory)

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Part II, Semester 2
 COMP2004 Database Systems (Compulsory)
 COMP2005 Distributed Computing (Compulsory)
 COMP2008 Communications and Networks
(Compulsory)
 COMP2011 Theory of Computing (Compulsory)
 COMP2012 Software Engineering Group Project
(Compulsory)
 COMP2039 Artificial Intelligence (Compulsory)

Some Year 3 modules:
 COMP3020 Individual Project
 COMP3004 Principles of Computer Graphics
 COMP3005 Computer Vision
 COMP3006 Real-time Computing and Embedded Systems
 COMP3008 Machine Learning
 COMP3010 Advanced Computer Networks
 COMP3011 Critical Systems
 COMP3013 Multimedia Systems
 COMP3016 Hypertext and Web Technologies
 COMP3017 Advanced Databases
 COMP3018 E-Business Techniques
 COMP3028 Knowledge Technologies
 COMP3032 Intelligent Algorithms
 ELEC3020 Advanced Computer Architecture
 ENTR3002 New Venture Development
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Finding ECS details
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Courses in ECS
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Example: MEng CS
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Example: Programming 1
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Who Does Comp Sci?
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Who is this?
Professor Sir Tim Berners-Lee
OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA
On 25 December, 1990 he
implemented the first
successful
communication between
an HTTP client and
server via the Internet
English Computer Scientist!

Fareham College
 Born 8 June 1955
 Degree: The Queen’s College
Oxford
 Occupation: Computer Scientist

The Web – most successful information
architecture in history

Fareham College
Prof Dame Wendy Hall
Thought Tim B-L’s
invention would
go nowhere!
First non-American
President of the
ACM
On Prime Minister’s
Advisory Panel on
Technology

Girls not
in Computer Science
'Geek' perception of
computer science putting
off girls, expert warns Prof
Dame Wendy Hall
Computer Science had to be "given a buzz"
to all pupils in primary schools and children
needed to be shown how vital the discipline
is to society.
"Girls have been further put
off by dumbing down
computing to IT literacy ...
They think that if they study
computing they are going to
become secretaries."
Separate statistics reveal that just 148 girls took the
AQA exam board's computing A-level – seen as one of
the most difficult computing A-levels – last summer,
compared to 2,123 boys. Five years earlier, 3,628 boys
and 297 girls took the exam.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jan/10/fewer-girls-taking-
computer-science?newsfeed=true

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Julian Field
Author of:
The World’s most used
email virus and spam
management program
– and it is free!
Protecting more than 1 billion
emails every day.

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Donald Knuth
Author: The Art of
Computer Programming
Current version of TeX:
3.1415926
Prize for finding an error
in book: $2.56

iPhone.
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American technology?
Apple Chief Designer
•?
Three processor chips
•?
Graphics processor
•?

iPhone.
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British technology
Apple Chief Designer
•Jonathan Ive (British)
Three processor chips
•ARM (British)
Graphics processor
•Imagination (British)

New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg takes
coding course
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has
resolved to take an online computer coding
course.
The mayor is joining more than 180,000
people currently taking part in Code Year, a
campaign to encourage more people to
programme.
"My New Year's resolution is to learn to
code with Codecademy in 2012!" he wrote
on Twitter.
Participants in the course receive an
interactive lesson each week, via email.
The campaign
promises that
participants will
be "building
apps and
websites before
you know it".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16440126

But I want to...
 Get rich
 Help people
 Be creative
 Make things
 Understand how people think
 Cure cancer
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Fareham College
Richard Jones
Wrote Audioscrobbler as
his Part III Project!
 Software monitors your
listening
 Uses collaborative
filtering to see a pattern
 Records pattern and
compares with patterns
of others
Last.fm bought by
CBS for $280m.
Richard’s share
was $38m!

Distributed Computing
 Some tasks need lots of computing power
 Protein Folding
 Alzheimer’s
 Huntington’s
 Parkinson’s
 Diabetes
 Many cancers
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Watson
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Named after:
Thomas J Watson
Won Jeopardy!
200 million pages of
structured and
unstructured content,
four terabytes of disk
storage, including the full
text of Wikipedia. Watson
was not connected to the
Internet during the game.

The future for Watson?
 Watson can quickly use clues that rely on subtle meanings, puns, and
riddles; something humans excel at and computers do not.
 IBM machines have previously taken on chess players
 Agreement with speech recognition firm Nuance Communications, to
"explore, develop and commercialise" the Watson computing
system's advanced analytics capabilities in the health care
industry.
 Watson can scan and analyse information from many more resources
than a human can in a short period of time, potentially aiding doctors
in diagnosing patients quickly.
 Other possible applications for Watson's technology include
dealing with big sets of data commonly found in the legal and
financial worlds.

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Biological complexity

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World’s cheapest
swarm robots
Emergent behaviour
About 10 quid each
Now manufactured in
Hungary
Rule: I like to be close
to you but not too
close.
Get: Flocking behaviour

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Lord Drayson, ex-Minister for
Science and Innovation, interested
in a Student Robotics project

Fareham College
Web Science is
interdisciplinary
Physics
Statistical Mechanics
Phase Transitions…
Political Science
Governance
Democratic Mechanisms…

January1,2009
“Openness will strengthen
our democracy and promote
efficiency and effectiveness
in Government.”
--- President Obama
Putting Govt
Data online-
Data.gov.uk
beta
May21,2009
January19,2010
data.gov.uk online
Semantic Web and
Linked Data
enabled
May21,2010
data.gov online data.gov relaunch
with semantic web
featured
June30,2009
December8,2009
“Open Government
Directive” released
2009
2010 …
57 Data Sets
~3000 Data Sets
~2000 Data Sets
~4500 Data Sets
June,2010
2005
The Web – open government data

Why?
 Transparency
 Accountability
 Engagement
 Improve Public Services
 Efficiency – better for less
 Economic and social value

Generate Music
 Remember this...  What if played through
music box?
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Music Box of Life
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Art
 Pixar  Glitch
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Who needs
Computer
Science?
Lawyers Doctors
Accountants Soldiers
Engineers
Celebs
Everyone
needs
Computer Science

Fareham College
The basis for a great future!
Learn from real people have created it
and who are creating it now!
Create the future yourself!
Great careers in Research and
Development!
Computer Science!

What’s their business?
 Gaming
Aardvark Swift, Climax Studios
 Banks and Finance
BAML, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Winton Capital Management
 Professional services, Consultancy
Accenture, Deloitte, JP Morgan, KPMG, PwC
 Technology/Software Solutions, Computers
Cisco Systems, IBM, Logica, Corefiling, Critical Software Technologies,
Gresham Computing, MicroFocus, Netcraft, New Voice Media, Ocado, Open
Market, Snowflake Software, Switch Concepts
 City/Finance:
FactSet, Fidessa, Gloucester Research

What’s their business? [2]
 Communications
Bloomberg, BBC Research and Development, BT Security, Ericsson Television,
NDS, Telesoft Technologies, Telsis
 Electronics and manufacturing
ARM, Atmel Technologies, BAE Systems, Cambridge Silicon Radio, Captec,
ChamSys, Detica, Dialog Semiconductors, Imagination Technologies, Keeler,
Schlumberger, SELEX Galileo, Qualcomm, Roke Manor Research, SPI Lasers,
STI, Texas Instruments, Thales, Sagentia, EA Technology
 Organizations/utilities
TeachFirst, Year in Industry, FDM, Contact Singapore, GCHQ, NATS, Centrica,
Estee Lauder
 Agencies
Gradcracker, Enterprise Recruitment, MatchTech, STR

Fareham College
From the inaugural lecture
given by Prof. D. W. Barron.
Jan. 1971
“It is too late to turn back …. If
computers are to be used for good,
then I is essential that everyone
should understand what they can do.
…. because out of understanding
comes judgement”
….changes in Society that computers will
bring …. not going to be comfortable,
but it is the job of those of us in the
University to ensure, by research and
education, that they are not
catastrophic. That is why I am in the
game. And to be honest,
it is great fun too!”

Fareham College
Have fun!
Succeed!
Computer
Science!

“Creativity is
intelligence
having fun!”
Albert Einstein

Computer Science: The best fun there is? @ Fareham Byte

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