Geek's Talk IV: Embodied Cognition

Last Wednesday, I had a great opportunity to attend one of the technical symposiums (with my lab mate - Rianne ~ sporting habis minah ni.) organized by the MCC Maastricht. This symposium is called “the embodied cognition” and sponsored by the SIKS (Dutch Research School of Information and Knowledge Systems), and The Netherlands Organization of Sciences. In this event, several researchers in their respective fields have presented their works, especially in the theoretical and practical insights of it.

You might be puzzled what on earth this “embodied cognition” is all about (tak abis-abis laa si azizi ni memeningkan kepala pembaca blog dia - takpe utk share ilmu -jangan muntah yeee). In a nutshell, embodied cognition is referring to the field of study that explains the underlying mechanisms of intelligent behavior (what we / nature have) in machine. Having this direction, machine needs to have a formation of human-like design (or at least nature inspired design), for example – having a face to express emotions, or hand-like structure to perform object-picking instruction. Basically, we will develop a mathematical model to explain the nature of our interest (let say, the way people communicate), and put it into a machine / robot.

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Dr. Ballard (University of Texas at Austin, USA) is giving his lecture on virtual world and eye gazing project

*pakcik ni mg lawak ...( dok gelakk je memanjang)

One aspect that triggers my attention is the ability to understand human eye-gaze. Eye-gazing is a process that we do everyday, simply to address “interestingness’ – for example ~ looking at the nice car, trying to find the weird sound, looking for someone in the crowded place, or focus to your computer screen while reading this silly blog and so forth. The very foundation of these properties will allow us to understand how we communicate, coordinate our limbs, and avoid something dangerous. By having this mechanism in machine / computer, it will create a better interaction process, and also capable to help human in many ways. One of the interesting applications is to help disable people in their daily life. Rather than we have to understand all complex instructions, life will be better if machine itself understand our complex world.

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Researchers (Technical Univ. of Delft) with their micro-flyer that can navigate automatically using automated vision system .. (their design is inspired by the dragon-fly) ~ so lain kali kalau nampak benda kecik terbang - jgn sangka tu serangga - mungkin spy-robot nak menyekodeng anda ;-)..

Bear in mind, it has nothing to do with the Terminator robot, killing machines or any hypes that might be (macam dlm TV tu kan .. robot mesti jahat - selalunya filem US ..sbb nak tunjuk depa ni hero segala hero - nak muntah! .. tapi kalau dlm kartun / movie jepun, robot pulak jenis yg baik2 -- Doraemon .. Astroboy, .. apa lagi?).

* By the way, last nite, the Faculty of Sciences at VU Amsterdam had organized a summer party. Nothing much, just a live band, great drinks, great meals ~ they served sushi and vegetarian meals as well – apa lagi kita terjah .. (l love their fruit punch ~ no worry – no alcohol (siap pergi tanya merata2 ni .. n was confirmed my Dutch friend – thanks Matthijs for your effort to find out everything – since I’m a bit particular with the halal thingy” ~ otherwise I wont stick to it. “siap duduk tepi meja fruit punch tu .. minum tak ingat ..”.) gambar tak ambil sebab takde org bawak kamera – sebenarnya terlupa – well, geeks and their lab works, what do you expect. Heh..heh..hehh … so, anyway let the summer begins! (musim panas yg sejukkkkkkkkk )