From: Chris Zinkula (czinkula_at_gmail.com)
Date: Tue Oct 19 2004 - 09:13:58 PDT
There's a little mention of Newton mentioned in this new article here:
http://www.idsnews.com/subsite/story.php?id=3D25557
I've also included the whole article below for the sake of the archives:
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inside the mind of a Techno-maniac
Professor Larry Yaeger's resume is both technical and extensive
by Nate Gowdy
Indiana Daily Student
Published Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Larry Yaeger is a high-tech hero.
He built the voice for Koko the gorilla, appeared in "Terminator 2,"
worked as a scientific consultant and graphic artist in Hollywood,
built one of the best-known artificial life simulations (PolyWorld, a
computational ecosystem) and has done pioneering work on artificial
intelligence. He also spearheaded computational fluid dynamic flow
studies over space shuttles and submarines in the beginning of his
career.
Most recently, though, Yaeger has been Apple's technical lead in
developing its state-of-the-art handwriting recognition system,
software that features prominently in the newest version of operating
system software.
A bushy, silver-haired fellow, Yaeger is also a new professor in the
School of Informatics.
Robert Goldstone, a psychology professor as well as a colleague and
friend, explained that even while working for Apple, Yaeger
telecommuted from Brown County for years.
"Larry has been highly-connected to the cognitive science community at
IU. He will be an exciting, knowledgeable teacher," Goldstone said.
"He has a rare blend of theoretical knowledge and practical savvy."
Before IU, Yaeger's career sat with Apple. He is a Distinguished
Scientist -- the corporation's highest position up the technological
tract.
"He is an expert on computer programming, artificial intelligence,
neural networks and artificial life," Goldstone said.
Yaeger's years at Apple have also given him grounded expertise in
making large-scale systems actually work. Very generally, his job as a
researcher is to analyze very-complex problems and to use computers to
solve and simplify them. Yaeger is currently getting acclimated to
academia and will begin teaching an artificial intelligence and
artificial life topics course next semester.
His reason for coming to IU is purely practical -- he has lived in
Brown County for the last eight years.
"I love the vibrancy of Bloomington. It's just been a magical
experience at IU ... and I wouldn't miss Lotus Fest for anything,"
Yaeger said. "More significantly, IU is allowing me to pursue the
research directions I'm most interested in."
Yaeger has an unabated interest in artificial intelligence -- a
science which has been both glorified and vilified over the years.
"In 'Terminator 2,' (artificial intelligence) led to terminators," he
said. "In real life, I think machines will always be interdependent
with us."
On the lab scene set of director James Cameron's science fiction film,
Yaeger's video footage of his simulated ecology and organisms led
Cameron to tell the actor (Mike Dyson) that he was playing Yaeger.
"That's a dubious honor," Yaeger said. "Seeing as that character was
out to destroy the world and is (supposedly) playing me. So I try to
approach things responsibly with that forewarning."
The automatic handwriting recognizer is another story, as it has a
bright future.
At its core is a neural network character classifier. In other words,
it takes what is written and turns it into plain text.
"The original Apple Newton PDA (personal digital assistant) behaved
very poorly, and was parodied in the Doonesbury comic strip," Yaeger
said.
Yaeger is quick to note he had nothing to do with that first
generation of the technology.
"I kept a copy of that Doonesbury on my wall as reminder and incentive
to do better," he said. "I was either lucky or good, but I got it (the
second generation) to work."
With handwriting recognition, he went so far to say it will play a
greater role -- along with speech recognition -- as the technology
improves.
"For class situations, for example, the ability to hand out electronic
notes and for students to annotate these, draw their own diagrams and
to add explanatory text would seem to be incredibly invaluable and a
natural way of working," he said.
This semester, Yaeger cannot be found in the classroom, but his days
are a mix of research and meetings. He hopes to do a bit of writing
for publication soon, and while this is most rewarding for him, he
expects that to change.
"I'm looking forward to 'infecting' students' minds -- to teaching and
getting people interested in ideas so they can run farther with them
than I'll be able to," Yaeger said.
Andy Clark, professor of logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh
University-Scotland, and past director of cognitive science at IU,
said that along with his scientific claims to fame, Yaeger is a huge
science-fiction movie buff.
"Larry has the largest video/film collection I have ever seen, in all
formats that ever existed," Clark said. "It's a national treasure --
and so is Larry."
-- Contact staff writer Nate Gowdy at ngowdy_at_indiana.edu.
"inside the mind of a Techno-maniac"
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=3D25557
=A9 2000 Indiana Daily Student
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