see yourself in a mirror there’s this
big fairy tale Snow White there there is
this unforgettable scene mirror mirror
on the wall who’s the fairest one of all
and then to which the mirror replies o
queen well this one here but no idols a
thousand times more fair than you so
consider this a mirror which you see
every day is the original selfie machine
right it takes light from you and gives
you back a selfie because we haven’t new
things to give us selfies but a mirror
is a thing a mirror is acid right and a
mirror you know just gives you a direct
reflection of what you see what you are
can we animate mirrors can a mirror talk
to you like this can a mirror interact
with you can a mirror understand you can
I mirror learn about you can it sort of
reason and then sort of interact with
you and connect you to the world and
tell you about other things the world so
we are entering an age where mirrors and
things are becoming cognitive so what
I’m going to be talking about today’s
how do you add all these pieces together
how do you take things you know attached
what I just talked about interactivity
understanding learning and reasoning and
you know what we call cognitive or other
companies and you know the society calls
artificial intelligence and then
interact with you so that’s that’s what
I want to talk about but I want to talk
about in a specific type of things
mirrors but you know what I want you to
think about is you know what if we could
do this to all the things around us so
but before we do that before we see how
to create this magic let’s look at the
Internet itself the Internet has grown a
lot because of optical fibers that span
our earth we have a network of fibers
and optical communication and there it’s
again a light that is modulated that is
term
on and off that send signals all through
we can also take light and modulate it
and send it through free space you are
seeing this projector or project things
if you turn it on and off you can
actually encode and transmit bits on it
you can make an a wireless internet out
of optics so in fact with colleagues at
rpi and un RV we try to do that I’m not
really just from a point-to-point but
even when two objects are moving related
to each other like you know two drones
or two airplanes or two spaceships we
can actually communicate through optics
are very high rate at a very high
betrayed right so the wire the wireless
Internet has now gone beyond people you
have the mobile phones now it’s starting
to touch things now and we are entering
the age of the Internet of Things and
you know there are nine billion people
they’re going to be trillions of things
so there’s a lot to touch but you know
there’s more than this in parallel
there’s been advances in technology
we’re just what I talked about right the
in the computer science world we’re
moving away from compute to data and and
computers are moving from being
programmed to learning computers and
learning from the data if you just take
the human analogy that I show here so we
take in information through our
different senses our eyes or years our
senses are touched and so on right and
then we process them rightly understand
we interact with the world we understand
we reason we learn and we interact and
then we do something about right and we
respond so in what is happening is that
computers are being built which do
similar things so how what about if you
take things connect them via the
internet and then attach them to this
capability what is the art of the
possible let’s look at again mirrors and
images and selfies so let’s talk about
mirrors I’m going to take you through a
journey of different examples of how you
can sort of make a mirror come alive
and oh very interesting things so let’s
look at sustainable energy if you want
to make solar energy cheaper than coal
what do you have to do you have to make
that device much more efficient so one
way of doing that is to look at the cost
of the solar energy converter and the
look at the cost of a mirror if I can
take light and then concentrate it onto
an expensive device I can raise the
productivity of the device so that was
one of the projects that our colleagues
at IBM research in Zurich and our
yorktown labs did trying to concentrate
light you know thousands of times almost
2,000 times concentration of course you
have to cool this so we used ideas from
data center cooling technologies to be
able to you know cool using a MEMS
technology right integrator the chip
level I don’t know that this technology
did not fall in cost as fast as we want
and you know the the you know imperative
of climate change is much faster so
we’re doing take two we are looking at
something that’s already falling in cost
that is solar panels and then putting
mirrors around them and then we are
attaching the internet of things to it
and we are adding artificial
intelligence we are looking at the sky
taking selfies of the sky we are
processing information we understand how
much dust is there on a panel we can add
light and then you know produce more
electricity so what is happening the
mirror is becoming intelligent to
determine how much light I delivered to
a panel in the optimal way and that can
create more energy right and what we see
is that this can drive energy heels up
you can get more out of the same solar
panel and then you can reduce the cost
or amortized costs think about if I have
a plane that is running at fourteen
fifteen percent if utilization versus
double that level you can announce it if
you double utilization were yield you
can have the costs right so so that’s an
example of what we’re doing with mirrors
and solar so let’s turn from mirrors to
the images that they create okay and I
talk to you about the mirror being the
original selfie
we also heard about selfies recently
right and we are in the age of selfies
actually so you know today people by
cameras based on the capabilities of its
imaging technology and all the new ads
that you’re seeing is how good a camera
can take selfies whether it can throw a
flash at you interesting now we are also
moving from the age of selfies to the
age of dro knees where you know you send
a drone and that can capture a selfie
you know like it’s doing for this family
here right and you can also start having
selfies of your of your life all the
time right and this is an example of
putting a GoPro camera on a dog right or
when you’re doing adventurous things
such as flying that aircraft now you can
also take selfies of other things just
like you think of taking a selfie of
yourself you can take the selfie of the
earth by sending satellites okay well in
satellites very expensive but what’s
happening is now people are sort of
tagging on small or nano satellites
along with the normal satellite launches
and doing a you know hundreds of them so
soon the earth is going to get covered
with thousands and you know very soon in
a decade perhaps millions of nano
satellites each of them taking a selfie
of the earth and you can put that
together and see a picture of the earth
you know every day or even at a at a
faster resolution every part of the
earth every day or even faster so think
about it just like you have your taking
a selfie of yourself all the time you
have a selfie appear what can you do
with that you can actually transform a
number of industries such as agriculture
so one of the projects that we’ve done
this was done in the United States with
gala wineries was to take a combination
of satellite imagery and then combine it
with local weather information to give
precision information about you know how
much water to use similarly you can give
guidance about you know how much
fertilizer to use how to manage your
production in India one of the
challenges to doubling farmers income is
that productivity is very low we want to
be part of doing this for in here and
you know you can do this with selfies
so for example with the data that is
publicly available today you can go from
a world scale to a national scale to a
state scale all the way down to farm
scale and you can look at what is the
you know nature of vegetation that is
growing and how is that progressing and
if you analyze the data you can add
intelligence to that and you can now
deliver that to your farmers mobile and
by the way like I showed you in the
earlier slide a farmer can take a selfie
of you know of their plans or the
canopies and so on and you know just
like the human integrates all this
information you can integrate all this
information and then you give back
actionable insights that can double
productivity or more all right so so
that was aquaculture now coming back to
mirrors and selfies together can I put
them together not the original example
that I gave you so think of a mirror in
a jewelry store today the jewelry store
experience is very interesting you go
and you try on several things right or
the other people might be waiting for
you to try on several things and then
you know you it’s a very complex
decision process so what we can do is
suppose I had a magic mirror that sort
of understands you and gives you options
for trying on different types of things
and it automatically fits you can also
shop with somebody else and you know you
can try different things on and this is
not just for jewelry we have a project
around cognitive fashion to put various
kinds of things that you know using
images using selfies using a
personalization of how things fit to you
right so there’s an example of a
cognitive environment which sort of
interacts with you closely now you can
take this home you can take the mirror
home now you can take the mirror home
and then that mirror along with an
understanding of other things around you
so it’s a interaction between a human
and a thing the mirror and
you know a cataloging of the other
things and the mirror knows what are the
things you have like what’s there in
your what room and over time the mirror
understands you the mirror knows the
true you this is my daughter when she
was younger and and it can really give
you the recommendations that you need
right so we are entering this world in
which mirrors are getting animated
mirrors are getting a life of their own
things are getting a life of their own
powered by cognitive technologies and
then you can go back and stand in front
of a mirror and say mirror mirror on the
wall who’s the fairest one of all thank you