Computing bursts for Smartphones

Smartphones!

Everyone has them!

Well almost everyone. I don't have one (and I'm ok with that.)

But for the most part more and more people are getting smartphones. It's come to the point where you're pretty much the odd one out if you don't have one.

Well good news for those of you who do have smartphones!

A study team from the computer science and engineering departments at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan with what they call computational sprinting.

Transient behavior of initiation and termination of sprinting. Image credit: Computational Sprinting, Proceedings of the 18th Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA 2012).

Their method is aimed at all mobile environments, which mostly pertains to smartphones, but reaches other devices as well.

The researchers aim to overcome the current performance constraints present in current smartphones. The problem with the way current smartphones operate is that their processors are made for sustained performance, when in reality most smartphone applications are characterized by short bursts of intense computation punctuated by long idle periods.

The method of computational sprinting, along with the use of chips with over 12 processing cores would essentially fix this issue and result in better performance in handheld devices.

What does this mean for the field of computer science?

If this new processing method for mobile devices takes root we might see a surge in more mobile computing systems being used in all fields, which by extension means more productivity in all other fields. As mobile computing becomes more and more efficient, computers are going to become smaller and smaller, reducing materials needed to produce them and as such production costs.

Computational sprinting may very well pave the way to processing breakthroughs in different areas of the field of computer science.

What does this mean for the public?

Computational sprinting, if it succeeds, will mean more powerful smartphones in your hand. Response times will be quicker and processing power will be much more efficient. Running multiple applications at once will be less strenuous on your phone.

A Technical Review of Gears of War 3

I needed to choose something in the field of computer science to review, and I thought why not a video game? A review of something interesting would be much more captivating and fun to write than say, a review of a compiler or a new programing language IDE. And best of all, you obviously don’t have to be in the field of computer science to enjoy this product!

I’m a computer science major and as you might guess I play a lot of video games. (Heck I write another blog about video games.) I’m very interested in not only playing games but learning about what goes in to making them.

Video games fit well into the realm of the field of computer science. They are as much a feat of programing and computing prowess as they are artistic and creative.

On the surface of a game we see the work of the artists, hear the work of the composer, and live the work of the writers, but beneath all of that is the work of the programmers, the designers, and the developers.

Thousands upon thousands of lines of code go into making a modern video game run well.  

Today I’m going to review Gears of War 3, a video game that came out last November.

There are plenty of websites out there with their own reviews of Gears of War 3 so I’m not going to run through things like the story or the multiplayer, but rather I’m going to focus on more technical elements of the game. I’m also not going to offer too much opinion or conjecture, because that’s something I do over on my other blog.

Gears of War 3 is a fantastic game. It runs on the now industry standard Unreal Engine, a physics/graphics engine that powers the game and dictates how different objects interact with each other and behave in the game world.

The Unreal Engine is such a popular engine for developers for a reason. It’s one of the best out there, and it absolutely shines in Gears of War 3, developed by Epic Games, the same company that produces the Unreal Engine.

Getting the lighting right before finishing the models. 

Gears of War 3 touts some of the most impressive lighting I’ve seen in a game to date. Lighting is something you might take for granted while playing a game; the way the light filters through particles in the air, the way shadows are cast, and the way explosions affect the light.

Many games struggle to get the lighting just right, but the lighting in Gears 3 is very impressive and something to admire when you play it.

The physics in Gears of War 3 are superb. The characters in the world have a real sense of weight when they slam into cover and run across the battlefield. They way bodies and chunks fly apart and react to the environment is also very well done. More impressive than the body physics is the water physics. Gears of War 3 has some very natural water that reacts how you would expect it to when something passes through it or splashes into it rather than just a pre-determined splash animation.

Physics are a hard thing to nail down in games, but Gears 3’s physics are spot on.

Graphics! “Are the graphics good Joe? I like good graphics!”

Though graphics are not what make or break a game, they are an important part of the experience. Gears of War 3 has some of the most impressive graphics on the current generation. The lines are crisp and the environment has just the right level of realism without edging too near to the uncanny valley.

You’ll have nothing to complain about when it comes to graphics in Gears 3.

One last thing that a lot of people overlook is the graphical user interface, or GUI. Essentially it’s the menus in the game.  Gears 3 has a very simple front end GUI that gets you where you need to be fast.

The only thing I found to be a bit odd was that the multiplayer options were buried within a few other menus, but not too deep to be a real bother.

When it comes to technical achievement Gears of War 3 does not fall short in a single area. I give Gears 3 a 5/5 in the technical aspects of the game. And if you were wondering I give it a 5/5 in the areas of story, gameplay, and multiplayer as well.

The Field of Computer Science

I'm an undergraduate student at NDSU and my primary major is computer science (I’m also majoring in international studies). That means when I grow up I get to be a scientist! A computer scientist.

How fun does that sound?

The field of computer science is broken into many different subfields, from computational complexity theory, to computer graphics, to programing languages, human computer interaction and much more.

Computer science might just be one of the most important fields out there today. The advent of computers and computer scientists has completely reshaped society and the way the world functions. There are computers in virtually every device and system in existence today.

The work done in the field of computer science affects almost all other areas of study as well as shares ideas with them. Computer science research often includes other disciplines such as linguistics, mathematics, physics, statistics, and logic.

Most of the work done in the field of computer science actually involves manipulating programs and software, not the computers themselves.

"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - Edsger Dijkstra

Who goes into computer science?

Well, me, for one.

Who else? Anyone really. It takes a lot of patience and the ability to think logically, but anyone can get into computer science if they’re interested in doing more with computers than facebook.

Computer scientists want to use technology to make the world better and more exciting.

Let’s imagine a world without computer scientists. A world with no one to write new programs, no one to manage databases or information systems, a world with no one to come out with new operating systems, or cell phone apps.

What would that world be like?

It would suck wouldn’t it?

When you text someone next think of this: someone had to code a program in your phone that allows you to compose a text message. Almost every simple task that we take for granted is affected and made possible by computer science.

The website on which you're reading this text was only made possible by computer science. Someone had to code this webpage and all its elements. 

Computer science is a very complex and diverse field that has found its niche in every facet of society.