PBS aired an interesting show on solar power. It’s called Saved by the Sun, and it’s part of the NOVA programs. The show discussed innovative approaches to making solar energy part of the power production landscape. One approach is that of Germany, where solar power is subsidized by the government. While subsidies cost taxpayer money (electricity is more expensive in Germany than in other European countries), in this case they have several beneficial effects. First of all, solar panels are now cheaper, due to the fact that many more are being manufactured to keep up with the demand in Germany. The demand is there because the subsidies make sure that investing in solar power pays off. Germans also benefit from the jobs created (about 140,000) and of course from the intellectual property generated by the solar energy companies which will likely be leaders in the field for a while.

Sun Edison, a US company, takes a different approach. They offer a way for companies and government agencies to install solar panels without having to foot the up-front costs. Instead, Sun Edison pays for the installation, while the customer agrees to buy the electricity produced by the panels at a set price for a period of time (e.g. for 20 years). The customer has little up-front expenses and it can count on stable prices for a long period of time. Sun Edison also does well, since it knows what its costs and income will be for the same long period of time.

Let’s hope we see more examples like these soon.

Andrew Kun

First a video. We asked our visitors to volunteer and drive the Project54 driving simulator. In this video a volunteer (a prospective student) tries to operate a manual interface while driving. I ask him to “turn those lights on” and he takes his right hand off the wheel and looks over to a display. As he does this, his car starts to change lanes, and you can hear that the crowd behind him notices.

Next, here are two pictures. First a picture of Eric Ramsey, Project54 Engineering Manager, as he talks to visitors about the Project54 system. Next to him is the Project54 lab car.

My second picture shows the people who hosted the open house guests in the Project54 lab. Standing, from left to right: Zeljko Medenica (PhD student), Eric Ramsey, me, Matt Lape (sophomore), Oskar Palinko (MS student). Kneeling: Alexander Shyrokov (PhD student).

Thanks guys for your hard work!

Andrew Kun

On Saturday, April 14, the UNH ECE department hosted an open house for prospective students and their families. The Project54 lab was part of the open house. Our work revolves around advancing mobile computing in law enforcement. As part of this work we conduct research on mobile user interfaces, primarily speech user interfaces in vehicles (e.g. police cruisers). One of our research tools is the Project54 driving simulator (made by DriveSafety, a Utah-based company), which we demonstrated at the open house.

Project54 driving simulator

Many of us have used speech recognition in real-life situations, for example when using a telephone call center. Speech recognition is finding its way into cars as well (e.g. see my blog entry on the Geneva Auto Show) and has been a part of the in-car Project54 system for several years now. The simulator allows us to explore how a speech user interface will influence driving performance under different conditions. The different condtions in question? A very important one is the difficulty of the driving task. For example, are you driving on an open highway in Kansas, or are you negotiating the busy streets of downtown Boston during rush hour? If it’s the latter, having a conversation with your computer may be too distracting to be safe. Of course you can talk to a passenger while driving in Boston and you will not be too distracted to drive, so you can probably do so with a computer too, as long it’s programmed in a smart way. That’s the smarts that our simulator experiments are meant to get us closer to.

Andrew Kun