Travel

I love traveling. I try not to miss any opportunity of exploring a new place.

Chimney Rock Mountains, North Carolina

My trip to chimney rock mountain was a "trip to remember". It is about a 2 hour drive from charlotte. As a kid, I have always liked sitting next to the window and enjoyed looking out of the car window at the beautiful scenes while listening to music. Here's a bit of the nature I managed to capture in the moving car. The autumn season added to beauty.

After the 2 hour journey with short breaks, we reached the chimney rock mountains. It was now time to hike. We took the four seasons trail. The first part of our hike took about 45 minutes with numerous staircases, and eventually led us to the waterfall.

Many interesting things happened during the first part of our hike. First, it started raining. Despite, the use of umbrellas and huge huge trees blocking the rain, we managed to get wet.
Secondly, I spotted a snake.  It was the first time I witnessed a snake during hiking. It was staring right at us--therefore, I didn't dare getting close to it for a better picture. Can you spot the snake in the picture below?

After enjoying the waterfall, we ate a little and set out for another 1 hour hike on the chimney rock mountain. After climbing a few staircases, we came to know from a family about an elevator that can take us to a certain level of the mountain. It was a relief. But even after taking the elevator, there was a long way to go.

First, we reached the mountain part with the U.S flag. It was a huge flag. The view was scenic from here-- with a cool blue water lake sandwiched between the greenery.

Next, we came across the opera box-- a small cave like area, where if you spoke something, the person standing on the other part of mountain (with the U.S flag) could hear you.

Next we reached the devil's head (a rock in the shape of a devil's head). It was hard to believe that this rock was natural. See for yourself.

Finally, we reached the exclamation point-- the highest point of chimney rock. The pine trees over there were a rare species, and despite trying, I could not get my hand over a pinecone.

Microsoft Campus Tour (Redmond, Washington)

On 5th February 2014, a Microsoft campus tour was organized for TAPIA scholarship recipients. The TAPIA scholarship was awarded to STEM students from diverse ethnic groups, to attend the 2014 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. The conference was held at Seattle Washington from February 5-8 2014.

We had to board a shuttle from our hotel in Seattle to reach Redmond. The same day, the SeaHawks  (Seattle's football team)  parade had to take place in Seattle downtown since, they had won the Superbowl, two days before the start of our conference. We therefore had to take a different route to avoid traffic jams in the downtown, and were instead picked up from the SEA-TAC airport. It was a 40 minutes journey, and we all introduced ourselves to each other and enjoyed the ride. I particularly enjoyed passing over the floating bridge. Finally, we reached the beautiful Microsoft campus at around 1 pm.

 

Our tour began with a lunch table discussion with 4 recently hired international students at Microsoft, to give us a feel of the diversity at Microsoft. They talked about their journey towards Microsoft and the experiences they had so far. They answered our questions about research and culture at Microsoft.

At 2 pm, we were escorted to the Microsoft Envisioning Center, and were given demonstrations of 8 ongoing research projects. Most of the projects were gesture based, and used kinect and other sensors.

The first project was an interactive wall display to present and organize large research projects' timelines. Various modules in a project were visualized with their requirements and deadlines. Various touch and hand gestures were used to edit and inquire about the information.

The second project was quite interesting and complicated at the same time. It was about how to have meetings remotely with a project member using their avatar instead of them having to turn on their real video. The presenter also demoed the meeting scenario with the other person's avatar. It did seem as the cartoon version of the other person was talking in real time. They discussed how they are trying to study the haptics, and hand movement to come up with different hand gestures and how to accurately detect them.

The third project was about using kinect to do a 3D scan of an object for 3D printing. The presenter placed an object in front of the kinect zone, which captured. The presenter then used hand gestures to imitate a person building and shaping a clay pot, which were detected by the kinect sensor. The finalized image was then given to the 3D printer to print a model of the object.

The fourth project was the use of kinect in kitchen to aid your cooking. There was a kitchen setup having a large display on the wall. The presenter asked to display to pull out her favorite recipe, and all the required ingredients. The kinect sensor also sensed the pots and pans being used in the cooking and if the person was not using the right pan, it would alert them. The ingredients were also being recognized by the technology. Bringing a chili in front of the display would tell the person, if the chili is needed in the recipe or if it was the right chili for the recipe. It all seemed thrilling, but I still think there is a long way before we adopt this.

The fifth project was about digitizing the restaurant menu displayed out the restaurant, and using technology in the restaurant environment. The photos of the people sitting on the table were automatically being taken, just in case they didn't bring the camera or had no one to request for a picture. Also, the items on the table had technology/sensors on them to do a particular task.

The sixth project was about how to aid people in shopping. A large table top display displayed information about various parts on an item, when the item was placed on it and one of its part was tapped. In the demo, a car was placed on the tabletop, and the presenter asked us to tap different parts in which we were interested and wanted more information. For example, the tyre or window etc. The technology probably used RFID tags on the object parts to transmit information.

The seventh project was about using kinect technology to aid story telling to the children. A cartoon character of a toy was created when placed in front of the kinect sensor. This character was then used in the prewritten story. Various hand and body gestures during the story created different effects, such as turning on the lights or changing the background. The room seemed to have to be customized to the story. This project seemed to be relevant to places like disneyland.

The eight project was also quite interesting. It animated an object drawn on the wall display, and brought it to life, when tapped on one of its part. This aim of the project was to aid in design discussions.

At 3 pm, were taken to another building for some more demonstrations from other research departments.

The sketch insight project used pen and touch to quickly create charts and graphs for presentations. The presenter drew some sample charts for energy consumption per person in the world over the years. She showed how we can create our own icons and how the 'x' gesture would be differentiated from the canceling cross gesture.

The bing apps and MSN team showed interesting applications they developed. The 'Food and drink' app was an interesting one. They compiled a huge database of recipes from 4 famous chefs, to aid people who have no cooking experience.

The Lab of things project was another interesting one. They explained how different devices at home can be interconnected to achieve automation. Phrases used in everyday life can be used to automate tasks. For example, saying 'good morning' can start the coffee maker or turn on the lights. They also showed how an emotion of a person can be sensed by embedding sensors in the furniture. So if your friend is feeling blue or angry, you will quickly know.

There was much more to see, but we had to head back to Seattle at 4 pm, to attend other events at the conference. Microsoft gave each of us a bag of swag.