UVic student wants to put digital data to work for us
With many of us dropping digital data everywhere and every day, it’s time we develop systems to make it work for our own benefit, a University of Victoria computer scientist says.
Lorena Castaneda, a PhD student in computer science at the University of Victoria, said modern humans constantly generate data.
Such activities as online shopping, Internet browsing or the use of GPS systems in our cars or mobile phones create information about us that can be plucked by anyone.
“You are already giving up so much information through various applications, and you don’t even realize it,” Castaneda said in an interview.
“All that information is already out there,” she said. “But we are all so limited as to how we can exploit that information.”
For this week’s UVic Ideafest, Castaneda and colleagues will discuss and demonstrate realities of the digital environment, along with ideas on how to make it serve us today in a session titled “The Rise of Smart CyberPhysical Systems.”
Scientists will offer two-minute presentations about their work and its possibilities. Then people can make their way to a series of booth-style presentations and play with some “really cool stuff,” Castaneda said.
Topics will include a commercial pilot using drones and computers to study autonomous flying. For her part, Castaneda hopes to create a digital program to assist elderly people to live alone.
She noted that online marketing companies keep track of purchases we make, then offer us similar products for sale.
Other companies monitor the geographic tracking devices in our phones. If we happen to be near a coffee shop, we might get a message asking if we would like to stop for a cup.
“But in our department,” Castaneda said, “we are working on how we, regular people, can use all this information for our own benefit.”
The Rise of Smart CyberPhysical Systems session takes place from 1 to 3 p.m. today in room 660 of the university’s Engineering/Computer Science Building.