Contact:
Anne Watzman
(412)268-3830
PC Users Can Create Interactive 3D Graphics At the Desktop with Free "Alice" Software
PC users with Windows 95/NT can now create their own interactive, 3D worlds with "Alice," a software tool developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Virginia. "Our package contains a couple hundred models or objects, which can be assembled into a scene or placed in a room," says project manager Randy Pausch, associate professor of computer science and design. Users specify how the different objects will be used by clicking on them. "Even teenagers can build 3D worlds easily with Alice, then share them with friends on the Worldwide Web," Pausch says. "Alice" can be downloaded free of charge at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~alice.
Contact: Randy Pausch (412)268-3579
Have a Face-to-Face Chat with Albert Einstein Using Synthetic Interview Technology
You can have an interactive, face-to-face conversation with Albert Einstein as he floats before you in 3D with Carnegie Mellon's new Synthetic Interview technology. Einstein answers spontaneous questions about his life and research in real time through a combination of technologies developed at the university. They include the Sphinx speech recognition system, Lycos search engine, Informedia digital video information retrieval system and character simulation for intelligent multimedia. The co-developers, computer scientist Scott Stevens and associate professor of drama and arts management Donald Marinelli, say the initial goal of this project was to do an historical figure in depth and let people have fun. But if you collect enough information, this could be someone's key to immortality.
http://www.cmu.edu/etc/tech.html#performance
Contact: Scott Stevens (412)- 268-7796, Donald Marinelli (412) 268-2396
Companies Mine Historical Data To Improve Decisionmaking
Businesses of all kinds can improve decisionmaking by mining their data with software from Carnegie Mellon's new Center for Automated Learning and Discovery (CALD). CALD is grounded on more than two decades of research on algorithms and theory that can be applied to datamining in fields including information filtering, marketing, industrial process control, medical outcomes analysis and intelligent agents. "Today, more and more data are being kept on line, says CALD director Tom Mitchell. "Networking advances are making this data easily accessible and the basic research we need to utilize this information is reaching maturity." The CALD Web site is: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cald/
Contact: Tom Mitchell: (412)268-1299
Broaden Your Literary Horizons with An Antique Book on the World Wide Web
Add a new dimension to your literary fare with an antique book on the World Wide Web. Try a biography of Benjamin Franklin with an 1835 explanation of electricity, or a history of New England written in 1847. They're posted on Carnegie Mellon's Web site for antique books, where they appear in full-color scans that capture the weathered texture of the paper and the quality of the original illustrations. "We're digitizing neat old books that make great reads," says project director Robert Thibadeau, a senior research scientist. He and his colleagues have developed a new compression system that reduces the time and bandwidth needed to download the pages. Thibadeau says the books can be enjoyed over a modem connection without any plug-ins.
http://www.ul.cs.cmu.edu/antique
Contact: Robert Thibadeau: (412)268-3824
###
RSS