An updated video

I realized that the file size on my last video was much too large and doesn't play properly. Here's a compressed version I put on YouTube. Whaddya think?

flash help reference

1) get your main elements in place
2) then later enhance

Work on the stage
-to find the name look in the properties
window for info/it also tells you the location
(x,y)
-then go over the library and double click on it
to bring it up in isolation
-you can toggle between scene and story
-upstage = standard
-over = rolling over it
-down = depressed
-hit = the invisible state; you indicate what you
want to be the active part of the button (the hit
zone)
-to designate what is active; draw a
square for the 'hit zone'
select

importing: import to library (under the file menu)
-find the photo
-once it's brought in it's not going to be on
the stage it's going to be in the library

converting to keyframe:

masking: instaead of cropping you can draw mask to act as a keyhole
-making a mask:
-make them in 2 separate layers- (right
click)
-masks don't work in buttons

placing video:
-in this file it's called: placeholder_mc
-in the control menu; click actions
-for this exercise we can

-create a new layer
-file; import; import video
-select 'on your computer'
-find the file
-click continue
-progressive download from a web server
(video file needs to be in the same folder
as the .swf file)
-choose sorenson spark under the Video
codec
-steelexternalplaymute for the controls
-click finish

-check out the parameters for the flv
-set bufferto 5 instead of .1
-skinautohide -controls only show up
when user rolls over flv

-designing a buttons:
-create a new layer (labels)
-we always want the first button to return
to frame 1
-we want each label to be associated
with a unique key frame
-you need to extend each platform piece
(background, headline, buttons, etc) for
the entirety that it needs to live
-select the button and open the actions
window and tell it when you click on this
button jump to this frame and stop
-open global functions then movie clip control; then press then:

on (press) {
gotoAndStop("story1");

}

rather than remake all that functionality you can duplicate the layer; but don't forget to change the layer name that it points to?? this may not work


the frontpage and the inside page are two separate flash files:

actions window is under the Window menu

-12 frames per second is standard for flash

Getting closer

Here is an edited version of our interview with Andrew Ng. What do you think? I know the audio bites, but I'm not sure what to do about that. Anything missing from this video?

a few other things...

These are the color codes for the background & button images, and some possible story titles we thought of. They are totally tentative. Your feedback is appreciated.


background & button color codes:
886655
443333
ffffff
ddddcc
aaaa77
(got from http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/)


story names keywords:
chore
STAIR
stanford university
AI
dishwasher loading

Potential titels:
"Everyday Help is on Its Way"
"From Rosie to Roomba: Robots as Household Helpers"
"Robotic Arm Lends Helping Hand"
"Artificial Intelligence Research makes its break in the Kitchen"

Okay...here is the roll-over button image

Oops...the other potential background is here.

updated images

These are the images we made today as the potential background, and three buttons of the MM storyboard. There are two potential backgrounds: one is just with Andrew Ng's pic. and the other one also has some robot images in it. There is also a roll-over button image with a slightly different color shade. Would you please let us know what you think of them? See you Monday. - Nef & Ina

ox this migght help

http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/ROV/history.html

buttons for story segments

how about this for the roll over button that says: who is andrew ng?

also with the interview that is gna happen on friday @ 11am gates 112 (i think ina is coming with) will this section turn into who is the stair research team??

in which case how do u feel about this button:


-nef

fucking shit man

Why the hell isn't Flash and Soundtrack Pro on every computer at this school. This is making late night work DIFFICULT! :) <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 Also, working with that damn cgi web space is like hoola hooping in outer space- progress is slow and the learning curve is rocky.

With all that said:

1) How can I use Fetch to put Ng's audio interview file on the net it's 180mb.
-Answer: Ask my friend Bryan this weekend.
2) Why can I not find a computer that has Soundtrack Pro and will that be able to salvage whispers into something robust?
-Answer: Meyer Multimedia Desk help.
3) How do I drop my files, images, videos into the Flash templates?
-Answer: Lynda.com tutorial? what's my username and password??

ENough yelling. bye

Nef saves my day.

Nef and I met today at the Meyer library, to work on the first part of the MM story--the STAIR robot. He totally saves my day. He found a website at http://ai.stanford.edu/~asaxena/learninggrasp/
where there are a bunch of video clips and pictures showing how the STAIR robot learns to grab stuff.

For the storyboard background/banner, we (mostly Nef) tried a collage of images of robots in the pop culture and a picture of Andrew by STAIR. It is tentatiev. Looking forward to seeing you and getting your input tomorrow.

getting b-roll stalls

"Ina, I haven't found the b-roll you want, and I will call you when I find it, okay?" Jack said to me through his cell phone on 5/8 Tuesday morning. "Oh...so probably when?" I asked. "Ina, I am also on another line. I've got to go," the phone was hung up. Is what he said a courteous version of "sorry, there is no raw video footage"? Sigh....

Stanfor News ran an article and a video about the dishwasher-loading robot back in November last year. Ted assigned me to get those audio and video materials, which can be used in our storyboard on that topic. I contacted Stanford News, and they told me that Jack is the person to ask and he is usually swamped. Jack was actually prompt in returning my phone call and making arrangments with me. On my first trip to his office on 5/3, he uploaded the video file to the laptop I took there, plus a "bonus" video of a full-blown Honda robot performing dance steps. Realizing that the raw footage, or b-roll as Ted taught me, of the synchronized video is better for us to make our own video of, I make an appointment with Jack to go to his office again on 5/7 for the raw footage. This time, I was not as lucky. As Jack pulled out the file drawer where the mini-DV tapes were kept, he found that the tapes for that robot story were not there. Thinking that the engeering library might have checked them out, he made a phone call to the library, only to find that the person in charge was at a meeting. "Okay, Ina, I think they should have it. Check with me either this afternoon or tomorrow morning," he instructed. I called him the next morning, and got the response as described earlier. Shall I wait or call him again? Right now, I am really pessimistic about getting the b-roll, and think we may have to build the storyboard with the synchronized video file we have. :(

Andrew Ng speaks...a little

Here's a sample of what we got from Andrew Ng. I couldn't figure out how to directly upload it to this blog, so I dropped it in YouTube.

Next steps

All right, here's what everyone is responsible for:

Story component #1 -- What does STAIR do? And what is the potential market?
media: video interview with Andrew Ng, b-roll of STAIR in action (from Jack Hubbard at Stanford News Service), infographic of how it works, and perhaps an interview with a venture capitalist or potential user to talk about the market segment
supplementary info: links to press coverage of STAIR, extra downloads of the Andrew Ng
interview or the STAIR in action.
team members: Ina and Nef

Story component #2 -- Who is Andrew Ng?
media: video interview with Andrew, b-roll of him at work, pix of him and his team
supplementary info: links to his bio, his home page, his CV, and stories about him.
team members: Ted and William

Story component #3 -- Time line of significant scientific and cultural developments in the
history of robotics and AI at Stanford (we need a shorter name for this)
media: photos and/or videos of each development, along with a paragraph of explanatory text.
team member: Ox
inspiration: the Jerry Brown campaign time line, time line that accompanies NYT story about Ng's research. Try to have fun with this.
source: Get with Prof. Oussama Khatib. He has a highlight reel of important AI research at Stanford.

Don't forget: with each component we should think about a space to invite user comments and input and to get people engaged on the topic.
(Maybe a poll to vote for your favorite pop culture robot, a quiz, flash game, etc?)

We got 4 weeks.

On May 31, we need to have our story completed. That's four weeks from today. It's time to get moving.

To start, let's meet on Sunday, May 6, at Wallenberg Hall at 5 p.m. But let's all come to the meeting with an agenda, and hammer out that agenda on this blog between now and then. That way we'll be more productive when we meet.

Now that we know that we have story templates from Jane Stevens to use for our piece, I
think we need to prioritize three or four story elements that we'll work on between now
and the end of the quarter. Here is my preference:

1. What does STAIR do? (Video of it in motion; graphic of how the AI works; video
interview with Andrew Ng talking about it.)

2. Who is Andrew Ng? Or, if our video/audio quality is poor, we can focus on another
researcher. I think this piece is essential to humanize it, though. (Video interview,
supplementary text and links.)

3. What is the future market for STAIR? Who will benefit? (Video interview with Ng,
graphics/charts.) (I'm not crazy about this idea--how else can we represent this piece of the story?)

4. How does robotics research at Stanford relate to pop culture and Hollywood robots? In other words, how close is Stanford to bringing to life some of the popular robots we've seen?
(Slideshow with music of pix from Stanford and from popular culture.)

(If the fourth piece is not possible because of copyright issues, we could always do a
timeline of the history of AI at Stanford like the one shown in class today.)

Once we pick the three or four pieces of our story, we need to determine what media we
need to either shoot ourselves or gather from other sources to do those components. And
the final step is to assign team members to work on each of the tasks.

In summary, my hope for Sunday's meeting is that we settle on the components of our story
and then each person takes control of one of those components from here on out.

Let's get talking about this. And building.

Interactive vs. Multimedia

Thank you WIKIPEDIA!

"Interactivity in new media

Interactivity also relates to new media art technologies where humans and animals are able to interact with and change the course of an artwork. Artists and researchers around the world are working on unique interfaces to allow new forms of interaction that extend beyond the QWERTY keyboard and the now ubiquitous mouse. Artists, such as Stelarc work to define new interfaces that challenge our notion of what is possible when interacting with machines. His Hexapod for example looks like an insect though walks like a dog and the locomotion is controlled by shifting the body weight and turning the torso. Others like Ken Rinaldo have defined unique interfaces for fish in which Siamese Fighting Fish are able to control their rolling robotic fish bowls to interact across the gap of the glass. Simon Penny's Petit Mal allows a two wheeled sculpture to sense and respond to human presence and intelligently navigate the environment.

Denis McQuail mentions interactivity as one of the main characteristic of the new media. He quotes[3]:

Interactivity: as indicated by the ratio of response or initiative on the part of the user to the "offer" of the source/sender"


Multimedia:

"media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the (user) audience. Multimedia also refers to the use of (but not limited to) electronic media to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term rich media is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Multimedia means that computer info can be represented through audio, graphics, image, video and animation in addition to traditional media (text and graphics). Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application."



Presentation of Multimedia can be Linear or Nonlinear:

"Multimedia may be broadly divided into linear and non-linear categories. Linear active content progresses without any navigation control for the viewer such as a cinema presentation. Non-linear content offers user interactivity to control progress as used with a computer game or used in self-paced computer based training. Non-linear content is also known as hypermedia content. Multimedia presentations can be live or recorded. A recorded presentation may allow interactivity via a navigation system. A live multimedia presentation may allow interactivity via interaction with the presenter or performer."

Interviewing Andrew Ng

Ted and I are going to interview Andrew Ng tomorrow. You don't know who he is? QUICK READ THIS: http://ai.stanford.edu/~ang/

We're going to use this interview as part of a multimedia story on the mainstream use or readyness of robotics (from Rosie to the Roomba).


So Ted was thinking our story will go something like this....

Main story: Andrew Ng, an assistant professor of computer science, leads the wireless Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot (STAIR). The project consists of a mechanical robot arm mounted to a set of wheels. Ng sees STAIR as a consumer/office robot that could unload the dishwasher, clean up after a party, locate items in an office, or assemble an IKEA bookshelf. The robot is smart enough to perceive an object and determine how to grasp and operates without human oversight. Ng leads a team of 30 students and 10 professors.

Story shells:
- Who is Ng? Think “day in the life.” We gain an understanding of who Ng is, why he got interested in robots, and what he hopes to achieve. We could also focus on some of the students and research assistants. Story elements: text, video, audio.

- What does STAIR do? Show it in action and demonstrate its potential uses. Story elements: video, text, interviews.

- How does it work? Have Ng discuss the mechanics of STAIR and how its artificial intelligence works. Explain how it’s different from a robot that is merely programmed to perform tasks rather than think on its own. Story elements: video, interviews.

- Why does this matter? Our pop culture has always been fascinated with robots; STAIR shows just how close consumer robots are to being a reality. This could be a funny recitation of some of our more famous Hollywood robots (Rosie from the Jetsons, Kitt in Knightrider, etc.) with a side-by-side comparison of real-life counterparts at Stanford. Story elements: text, pix.

- Who could benefit? What’s the market for STAIR? The disabled. Lazy, rich people. Technophiles. Homemakers. Discuss how Stanford’s robots could affect these markets. Story elements: interviews, text, graphics.

- What is the future of STAIR? When might it hit the market? What would it sell for? Who would buy it? Story elements: interviews, text, graphics. (Could be combined with the market piece.)

- Where does this fit in historically? Stanford has a history of leading the way in artificial intelligence. In 1966, scientists at the Stanford Research Institute built Shakey, the first robot to combine problem solving, movement and perception. Flakey, a robot that could wander independently, followed. In 2005, Stanford engineers won the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge with Stanley, a robot Volkswagen that autonomously drove 132 miles through a desert course. Story elements: slides, text.


WHAT DO YOU THINK?