December 2008 Meeting Notes

Compiled by Dave Jaffe

Contributions from Kevin Appert and others

10:30

Coffee and a Chat

11:00

Matrix Multiplication in a Massively Parallel Processor Array - CH Ting
"My goal is to perform matrix multiplications of two 1000x1000 matrices. I think this can be done very fast if I have a processor array with 1000x1000 processing elements and sufficient memory in each element. I need suggestions on how to invert matrices and diagonalize matrices (eigen values and eigen vectors). So far, I have not found good ways to solve linear equation problems with a large processor array. All available algorithms work well only in serial operations."

Noon

Lunch
Due to the holiday Stanford campus closure, we may be carpooling to lunch venues on University Ave in downtown Palo Alto.

13:00

Introductions, Announcements, Rumors, Random Access

13:45

SVFIG Treasurer's Report - John Rible

14:00

Forth Day 2008 Lessons Learned - All in attendance

14:30

RoboDevelopment Conference & Exposition Slide Show - Dave Jaffe
Dave will present a slide show of this year's hobbyist / trade expo.

15:00

IntellaSys Chips - John Rible
"I'm proposing that SVFIG buy 50-100 bare chips to resell (may not be the proper wording for sales taxes, etc.) with enough mark-up to cover costs of mailing. IntellaSys (CEO Chet Brown) has agreed to sell them to SVFIG at $20 each if we agree to limit any one person to 10 or less and accept responsibility for all support / return issues (that's why IntellaSys is selling through distributors). This would occur in January, after the chips have been tested."

Kevin's comments:

"We'll discuss and decide! $20 * (50 chips) = $1000"

"I'm not sure we'd really sell this many so if you aren't going to be at the meeting, express your interest NOW! Let me know how many you want either by posting to the SVFIG list or directly to me at: forther-at-comcast-dot-net "

17:00

Adjourn -

Other items:

Forth

Other

80/20 Erector Set for grownups

Yoggie Pico personal USB firewall

RoboDevelopment Expo and Conference

Exhibitors

Robot chicken

Laser rangefinder

National Instruments

Try LabView online or download evaluation copy

ISP1161/x PCI Eval Board

Willow Garage, a proponent of Open Source robotics, will demonstrate the sensor head from the upcoming PR2 robot, including a stereo camera on a very fast pan-tilt head, a Hokuyo laser scanner on a tilt platform, and two pan-tilt-zoom cameras. Find out how the PR2 will see the world.