The speakers who gave 18-minute talks at last Friday’s inaugural TEDx Dublin event were:

Blaise Aguera y Arcas, MSN architect, Microsoft Live Labs:

A programmer for more than 20 years, Aguera y Arcas authored patents on both video compression and 3D visualisation techniques in the 1990s.

In 2001 he received worldwide press coverage for his discovery, using computational methods, of the printing technology used by Johannes Gutenberg that indicated he was not the direct inventor of movable type.

In 2004 he founded Seadragon (bought in 2006 by Microsoft) to explore ideas for user interfaces for interacting with large volumes of visual information. The Seadragon team is behind Microsoft’s Photosynth technology (www.photosynth. com), which Aguera y Arcas demonstrated in his talk.

Scott Rickard, associate professor in computer science and director of the Complex and Adaptive Systems Laboratory at UCD:

Rickard is an expert in signal processing and “source signal separation”, also known as the cocktail-part effect.

While humans are adept at hearing and distinguishing between simultaneous background conversations, separating these out of an audio stream is challenging.

He has worked in several research roles internationally including at Siemens, where he developed and applied machine learning technology to industrial problems such as vehicle navigation, automated image analysis, biomedical signal classification and industrial plant state prediction.

He spoke about the cocktail effect and demonstrated how this research helped the FBI to solve a murder case.

Mark Billinghurst, director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory in New Zealand:

Billinghurst’s work in augmented reality was inspired by a childhood love of the 3D holograms in the Star Wars films.

He is the inventor of the Magic Book, an animated children’s book that comes to life when viewed through the lightweight head-mounted display.

He received a Discover Magazine award in 2001 for creating the Magic Book technology. In 2004 he was nominated for a World Technology Network (WTN) World Technology Award in the education category and in 2005 he was appointed to the New Zealand government’s growth and innovation advisory board.

Billinghurst spoke on “Accessible AR: Bringing Augmented Reality to the Masses”.

– KARLIN LILLINGTON