Keynote Speakers
Bill Buxton
Tuesday, June 17, 8:30-10:00am

Bill Buxton is a designer and a researcher concerned with human
aspects of technology. His work reflects a particular interest
in the use of technology to support creative activities such as design,
film making and music. Buxton's research specialties include technologies,
techniques and theories of input to computers, technology mediated
human-human collaboration, and ubiquitous computing.
In December 2005, he was appointed Principal Researcher at Microsoft
Research. Prior to that, he was Principal of his own Toronto-based boutique
design and consulting firm, Buxton Design, where his time was split between
working for clients, lecturing, and trying to finish a long-delayed
book on sketching and interaction design. As well, he is an Associate
Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of
Toronto, where he still works with graduate students. More...
Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg
Wednesday, June 18, 8:30-10:00am

Shakespeare, God, and Lonely Hearts:
Transforming Data Access with Many Eyes
Data visualization has historically been accessible only to the elite
in academia, business, and government. It is “serious” technology
done by experts for experts. But in recent years, web-based visualizations—ranging
from political art projects to news stories—have reached audiences
of millions. Unfortunately, while lay users can view many sophisticated
visualizations, they have few ways to create them. In order to “democratize” visualization,
we have built Many Eyes, a web site where people may upload their own
data, create interactive visualizations, and carry on conversations.
By making these tools available to anyone on the web, the site fosters
a social style of data analysis that empowers users to engage with
public data through discussion and collaboration. Political discussions,
citizen activism, religious conversations, game playing, and educational
exchanges are all happening on Many Eyes. As we will discuss in this
talk, the public nature of these visualizations provides users with
a transformative path to information literacy.
Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg are research scientists in the Visual
Communication Lab at IBM. Having created traditional visualization tools for
a number of years, the two became fascinated by the power of the web to unleash
collective discovery and discussion among lay users. More...
Alex Szalay
Thursday, June 19, 8:30-10:00am
Scientific Publishing in the Era of Petabyte Data
Today’s scientific datasets are growing into Petabytes. A similar
transition is happening in industry and society. Web search companies
have to deal routinely with tens of Petabytes, a substantial fraction
of the world’s computers go into data warehouses of the Big 5.
Scientists, librarians and publishers are just beginning to grasp the
magnitude and multi-faceted nature of the problems facing us. Every
step of the usual scientific process will need to change and change
soon. Science in the 21st century will require a different set of skills
than previously, more computational and algorithmic thinking and more
interdisciplinary interaction will be hallmarks of a successful scientist.
The talk will present the challenges and trends in this "brave
new world". More...
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