MAS Reading Group

I’m starting a Multiagent systems reading group at GMU.  We intend to meet once a week on Tuesdays at 4:30 in ENGR 4437.  We go over papers we have read giving ~5min overviews and discussing and asking questions and/or critiquing them.  The presenters will post links to their papers and maybe a bit about our discussions in the category MAS Reading Group.

Sun based internet

I was just reading about LiFi and I was wondering why not just create window attachments that produce the same effect?  Then you can use the sunlight instead and the window can modulate the light to achieve the same effect as the LiFi.  Then both the lifi bulbs and the windows could work together to achieve optimal coverage.

So, this method only makes sunlight a medium for information to be encoded onto.  Therefore, device to device communication still requires an LED.  The main interest for using sunlight is to allow for regular internet access.

On a grander scale could we modulate earth’s atmosphere to essentially just be a bigger window so that we give internet to everyone on earth through sunlight?  That sounds like an XKCD comic haha :).

Pdf to Mp4

Kevin and I were exercising and we came up with the idea that there should be an app that will take your pdf or book and make it into a mp4 video that will scroll through your document that you want to read.  It will do it at a pace that is at your reading speed.  If enough people have read the book you could get their average read speeds for various sections and set the speed accordingly.

I just had the idea that if we had a head/iris tracker we might be able to guestimate where on the page you are at and move the page accordingly.  They have it on Galaxy S4.  However, I’d imagine that if you are walking or running basing it off of your head or iris will be difficult as your head will be bobbing.  Also, you might scroll unintentionally.

Faucet version of Nebia

I had an idea this morning that i had forget but now remembered!  It wasn’t that good, but I still thought it’d be worth writing since I remembered :).  So, the idea was that faucets (like in your kitchen and bathroom) should have water atomizers like in the shower head that Nebia makes.  I don’t think that that unlike with the shower we’d want it to be adjustable so that if we wanted a fast stream of water we could and if we just wanted to wash our hands we could get the atomized version.  Because there are things like filling a water cup or whatever where we actually need it blasting.  Otherwise, we are wasting water.  We already have faucets that spray out a couple thin streams of water.  However, I hate those.  I think its because I don’t feel like my hands are wet enough.  I think if the spray was like the Nebia that I’d like it.

I think that this idea could go rather well with my other idea of putting a kinect like device for vision to control the faucet.  Then it could also control how the water would come out.

Bitcoin mining and Bounty hunting

I just now realized that the bounty systems is very similar to the bitcoin mining method for getting tasks done.  There can be multiple people working on the same mining job at the same time.  However, only the system that finishes first gets the reward.

According to a Quartz article on bitcoin mining

Or rather, some miners are rewarded. Miners are all competing with each other to be first to approve a new batch of transactions and finish the computational work required to seal those transactions in the ledger. With each fresh batch, winner takes all.