After a busy week of welcome talks and induction, orientation week drew to a close with the postgraduate BBQ.
MSc and PhD students had an opportunity to meet each other, discuss their diverse backgrounds, previous studies, eat burgers, twiglets and consume the local delicacy Irn Bru.
Images Courtesy of Anne Campbell
It was great to see so many undergraduate computer science students at the Orientation Barbecue yesterday. New and returning students had the opportunity to discuss the merits of studying computer science, eat burgers and consume the traditional Irn Bru in a friendly setting.
The Gaming/Programming Competition winners also received their prize in the form of Amazon vouchers. Congratulations to Maclej, Simon and Daniel.
The PhD Reading Party was held at the Burn House, just outside Edzell in the
North East of Scotland.
It was an opportunity for the research students to
give a talk in a relaxed atmosphere, about their research interests.
It also allowed for some socialising while wandering through the nearby
woods and rivers.
Each student gave a 20 minute talk including time for questions and discussions.
In the free time some went off to explore the nearby forest and salmon
rich river while others decided to take a trip to Montrose and test the
North Sea.
Text and Images Courtesy of Ruth Hoffmann
After a summer of hard work the MSc student poster presentations and project demos took place earlier today. Dissertations were submitted on Monday. We wish them every success as they approach graduation and look forward to seeing them again in November!
Congratulations to Hassan and Ali Khajeh-Hosseini on their ShopForCloud business, which has just been sold to RightScale.
Ali worked as a software engineering intern at RightScale while studying for his PhD in computer science. Read more in Scotsman business article and on the ShopForCloud Blog.
Congratulations to Comp Sci grads Robert MacInnis, Allan Boyd and Angus Macdonald who are launching their software company AetherStore™ this week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partners Conference. Read about their new business in the press release and in the University Alumni Network. Visit their websites at www.AetherWorks.com and www.AetherStore.com.
We wish you every success in your new business venture.
Update
Read more about AetherStore in Scottish PhDs hoist kilt to reveal storage array killer at The Register.
Congratulations to our PhD students Lars, Angus, Vladimir, Greg and Devan pictured at graduation.
The School of Computer Science is 5th in the UK and top in Scotland in the 2013 Times Good University Guide. The University as a whole came 6th.
Connecting Families over Distance
Families often have a real need and desire to stay connected with their remote family members and close friends. For example, grandparents want to see their grandchildren grow up, empty-nest parents want to know about the well being of their adult children, and parents want to be involved in their children’s daily routines and happenings while away from them. Video conferencing is one technology that is increasingly being used by families to support this type of need. In this talk, I will give an overview of the research that my students and I have done in this space. This includes studies of the unique ways in which families with children, long-distance couples, and teenagers make use of existing video chat systems to support ‘presence’ and ‘connection’ over distance. I will also show several systems we have designed to support always-on video connections that move beyond ‘talking heads’ to ‘shared experiences’.
Biography
Dr. Carman Neustaedter is an Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University, Canada. Dr. Neustaedter specializes in the areas of human-computer interaction, domestic computing, and computer-supported collaboration. He is the director of the Connections Lab, an interdisciplinary research group focused on the design and use of technologies for connecting people through space and time. This includes design for families and friends, support for workplace collaboration, and bringing people together through pervasive games. For more information, see:
Connections Lab.
The subhonours lab was busy with the Connect 4 challenge this morning. Students taking CS1006 Programming Projects worked in pairs in a round-robin format, in which every duo plays every other once. Congratulations to Hamish and Mariya who won today’s challenge and received Amazon Vouchers as a reward.
