Additional Topics
2009–10

Principal lecturer: Prof Andy Hopper
Additional lecturer: Dr Robert Harle
Taken by: Part II
Syllabus
Past exam questions
Information for supervisors (contact lecturer for access permission)

About the Course

This course is intended to expose Part II students to some more topical issues in Computer Science than can be covered elsewhere in the three year course. The lectures are given by a variety of lecturers from both academia and industry.

For this year the lectures are 12:00-13:00 in Lecture Theatre 2 of the CL.

Here is a provisional schedule as of 20/04/10:

Electronic copies of notes, links and other material will appear here as the lectures are completed.

Notes and Materials

Lectures 1 and 2: Context-Aware and Location-Aware Computing

What you need to know: The principles of AoA, ToA and TDOA location; Examples systems of each; Basics of inertial navigation; fingerprinting.

Download the handout from here. You can also see the annotated slides from lecture 1 and lecture 2.

Lecture 3: RFID

What you need to know: Types of RFID; Active vs Passive; Properties and applications for close-coupled, remote-coupled and long range RFID; Principles of back-scattering; Basics of EPC; Anti-collision protocols for LR tags; Technical, real-world issues with LR tags

Download the annotated notes from here. You may find the RFID handbook interesting reading (there is a copy in the CL library): www.rfid-handbook.de.

Lecture 4: Mobile RealVNC

What you need to know: Challenges in moving to a mobile world (user interface, platforms and examples, development cycle, politics.

Download the slides here.

Lecture 5: Computing for the Future of the Planet

What you need to know: Ways in which technology might help create a more sustainable future.

Download the slides from here

Lecture 6: GPS

What you need to know: GPS components; Basic operating principles; Error sources; DGPS; Selective availability; A-GPS; The notion of Gold codes and how they are used.

Recommended site: Here

More detailed information (including official docs): Here

Lecture 7: Coding in Industry

What you need to know: typical build tools; test-driven development; notion of code coverage; tools to improve code quality; how to measure performance usefully; the dangers of open source and code copying

Download the slides from here

Lecture 8: Developing Commercial Software

What you need to know: The people involved in creating commercial software; How to decide whether to pursue a proposed project; Typical timescales; How to tackle usability issues

Download the handout from here and the slides used in the lecture from here.

Lecture 9: Affective Computing

What you need to know: The advantages and disadvantages of having computers sense emotions; Techniques to sense emotions; Results so far.

Full details can be found here

Lecture 10: Computing Principles and Practice of a Blockbuster video game

What you need to know: The people involved in creating commercial software; How to decide whether to pursue a proposed project; Typical timescales; How to tackle usability issues

Download the slides from here and with speaker notes from here.

Lecture 11: Building and Deploying Google Voice Search

What you need to know: The high level design of Google voice; The limitations of mobile platforms; The deployment challenges; The UI challenges

The material discussed in this lecture was to be published beforehand so that handouts could be provided. Unfortunately a delay in the publication process has meant that Google are unable to release the paper or slides. We are awaiting the publication, which is imminent.