Back from Farnborough

I'm just back from my trip to Farnborough. We heard from four Interdisciplinary Research Collaborations - groups of 60-100 people from ~5 UK universities each. The directors gave very good overviews of the extensive and impressive work done in each case. Some brief extracts from my notes:

Quantum Information Processing IRC: Andrew Briggs and John Rarity presented a complex topic very clearly - I think it's the closest I've ever come to "understanding" quantum.

• If I understand "Measurement based quantum computing" at all correctly, it means that one can bypass the difficult stage of having to set up qubits into cleverly entangled states, and instead conduct a sequence of measurements, which will result in the same thing.
• Clever entangled pairs of photons promise very sensitive measurements below standard quantum limits
• Making qubits out of a nitrogen atom inside a C60 Fullerene.
• Quantum crypto off the shelf

Equator IRC - Integration of Physical and Virtual Interactions.

• Lots of fun stories about how people behave differently with pervasive/wearable computers. Some interesting thoughts about how systems are never seamless, and trying to hide the seams can be counterproductive, as people are often good at getting around the seams if they can see them.
• Interesting games "Can you see me now?"
• DRS, an interesting data recording thing, a bit like something I saw back at home.
• Ultra-cheap location systems using ultrasound triangulation, and location/mapping systems with mini cameras and clever algorithms.

Dependability IRC (Dirc)

• Some interesting talk about modelling time in bands - things (e.g. mode changes) can sometimes be considered instantaneous events, and in other contexts to be activities that take finite time. Reminded me of some work by Sanderson and Memisevic (?) presented as a keynote at Complex07.
• The DEPLOY Project to sponsor trial deployments of formal methods in industry - at Newcastle University, but no web page yet.
  
• Developing requirements for systems by modelling the environment outside the system boundary, and deriving requirements for how the system should interact with the environment.

Advanced Knowledge Technologies - semantic web.

• Using Owl and RDF to add meaning to data on the web
• A version of Wikipedia with RDF tags
• Lots of data integration mashups with interesting/scary privacy implications, and a vaguely defensive use in Garlik
  
• AktiveSA: Technology Demonstration System for Enhanced Situational Awareness in Military Operations Other Than War - Computer Journal 50: 703-716 (2007).
• A fancy demonstration of a fire emergency response situation

All the presenters emphasised that the interdisciplinarity was a marvellous opportunity, although it did come with some challenges - in particular, that it can be hard to publish such work. It was also noted that it took 1.5 - 2 years for interdisciplinary teams to reach an effective level of integration and trust, and that it would be difficult to achieve this in a shorter program.

Interesting talk from EPSRC (UK funding agency) and EU funding people about their priorities and strategies.

Also met a bunch of very friendly and thoughtful (in both senses) people from work and work-related places who I'll get to chat to more about all sorts of things (work related and more) over the coming days, weeks, and months. A well organised and run symposium, both in- and out-of-hours. In case it hasn't emerged from this blog entry yet, I had a very stimulating and enjoyable time - what a great introduction to my work environment for the next year!