Dr Tony Hey, Vice President of Microsoft Research, will speak on 29 October about the origins and future of computational thinking, from Alan Turing’s work through to the future of artificial intelligence in ‘The computing universe’. His book of the same name will be published in November by Cambridge University Press. It is a rare opportunity to hear from the man responsible for Microsoft’s university research collaborations worldwide, a prolific writer and an academic polymath who spent years in particle physics then jumped to computer science and eventually moved from academia to the corporate world.
Hey’s talk will pay homage to the pioneering work on early computer hardware and programming by Maurice Wilkes and his team at Cambridge as well as Tommy Flowers’s work on the Colossus machine at Bletchley Park and Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams in Manchester. To illustrate the importance of abstraction in computing, Hey will describe the ‘File clerk’ model of computing coined by Nobel prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. His account of computer hardware will stretch from logic gates to the microprocessor and Moore’s Law. On the software side, Hey will start with Euclid’s algorithm for the Greatest Common Divisor and continue through to PageRank, the ‘billion dollar’ algorithm that launched the search giant Google. He will cover the origins of the personal computer, the Internet and Web to bring things up to the present. The talk will conclude with a look at the rise of artificial intelligence, machine learning and Butler Lampson’s ‘Third Age of Computing’. [29 October]
In ‘Big Brother 2.0’, four University of Cambridge experts will examine issues of surveillance and security, debating their significance. Prof Jon Crowcroft (Computer Laboratory) will speak on cyber-security; Prof John Rust (Psychometrics) will discuss 'nudging' online; Prof Caroline Humphrey (Social Anthropolgy) will discuss surveillance in the former Soviet Union and China; and Prof John Naughton (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) will take up ethical and philosophical questions around surveillance. The event is chaired by Charles Arthur, Technology Editor for the Guardian. [1 November]
The same issue, surveillance, can be examined in a wholly different way at Anglia Ruskin University with ‘Panopticon’. An interactive, multimedia art installation with live audio and visual elements, it prompts visitors to consider how our identities and privacy are being eroded. Set in a circular room, the piece ‘watches’ its audience and integrates them into that piece. [Multiple performances, 24-26 October, 31 October, 1-2 November]
‘Could Cambridge be a smarter city?’ explores the future of embedded and locative systems here. The event follows up on a debate, held a year ago in Cambridge’s historic Union Society, that sought to spark dialogue between Silicon Fen, artists and planners by asking whether the city were ‘smart’. Although attendees initially assumed Cambridge was—of course—‘smart’ by the end of the evening, the majority had changed their views.
This year’s event brings together experts from the arts, technology and academia to describe some smart city projects. The experts will then invite the audience to help develop new ideas to address some of Cambridge’s ‘wicked’ problems. The BBC’s Bill Thomson will chair the event. [30 October]
Collusion, a new agency based in Cambridge operating at the intersection of art, technology and human interaction, launches the Maker Challenge at Cambridge’s Makespace. The initiative challenges small, multidisciplinary teams to develop projects in response to local problems such as pollution and congestion. The challenges will take place across three Saturdays between December 2014 and February 2015.
The University of Cambridge Festival of Ideas runs from 20 October to 2 November and features leading thinkers, academics, writers and performers including Ha-Joon Chang, Professor Sir Richard Evans, Ben Okri, Carol Ann Duffy, Caroline Criado-Perez, Alexander McCall Smith and Bridget Christie.
Now in its seventh year, the Festival features over 250 events—ranging from talks, debates and film screenings to exhibitions and comedy nights—held in lecture halls, theatres, museums and galleries around Cambridge. Entry for many is free. It is sponsored by Cambridge University Press and Anglia Ruskin University, which also organise Festival of Ideas events.
Event partners include RAND Europe, University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden, Heffers and Cambridge Junction. The Festival’s media partner is BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
More online at: http://www.festivalofideas.cam.ac.uk/
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For more information on Panopticon or to arrange an interview, please contact Jon Green on 01245 684717 or email [email protected]
For more information on all other events or to arrange interviews, please contact Catherine Aman on 01223 332420 or email [email protected]
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