Lecture 02: Info/History/Photo

1. Prof. Ray Larson & Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 am - 12:00 am Fall 2002 Lecture 02: Info/History/Photo SIMS 202: Information Organization and Retrieval

2. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Photo Project Introduction

3. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Photo Project Introduction

4. What is Information? • There is no “correct” definition • Can involve philosophy, psychology, signal processing, physics • Cookie Monster’s definition: • “news or facts about something”

5. What is Information? • Oxford English Dictionary • Information • Informing, telling; thing told, knowledge, items of knowledge, news • Knowledge • Knowing familiarity gained by experience; person’s range of information; a theoretical or practical understanding of; the sum of what is known

6. Assignment 1 Discussion • What is information, according to your background or area of expertise?

7. Types of Information • Differentiation by form • Differentiation by content • Differentiation by quality • Differentiation by associated information

8. Information Properties • Information can be communicated electronically • Broadcasting • Networking • Information can be easily duplicated and shared • Problems of ownership • Problems of control Adapted from ‘Silicon Dreams’ by Robert W. Lucky

9. Intuitive Notion (Losee 97) • Information must • Be something, although the exact nature (substance, energy, or abstract concept) is not clear • Be “new”: repetition of previously received messages is not informative • Be “true”: false or counterfactual information is “mis-information” • Be “about” something • This human-centered approach emphasizes meaning and use of message

10. Information from the Human Perspective • Levels in cognitive processing • Perception • Observation/attention • Reasoning, assimilating, forming inferences • Knowledge • “Justified true belief” • Belief • An idea held based on some support; an internally accepted statement, result of inductive processes combining observed facts with a reasoning process

11. Information from the Human Perspective • Does information require a human mind? • Communication and information transfer among ants • A tree falls in the forest … is there information there? • Existence of quarks

12. Meaning vs. Form • Form of information as the information itself • Meaning of a signal vs. the signal itself • What aspects of a document are information? • Representation (Norman 93) • Why do we write things down? • Socrates thought writing would obliterate serious thought • Sounds and gestures fade away • Artifacts help us to reason • Anything not present in the representation can be ignored • Things left out of the representation are often what we don’t know how to represent

13. Information • Consider Borges’ infinite Library of Babel… • It has all possible data combinations of letters • Does it therefore contain all possible information? • What about all possible knowledge? • What about wisdom? • Is the Internet a prototype Library of Babel?

14. Claude Shannon, 1940’s, studying communication Ways to measure information Communication: producing the same message at its destination as that seen at its source Problem: a “noisy channel” can distort the message Between transmitter and receiver, the message must be encoded Semantic aspects are irrelevant Information Theory Noise Message Source Trans- mitter Receiver Desti- nation Channel

15. Information Theory Message Message Source Encoding Decoding Destination Channel Noise Message Message Source Encoding (Writing/ Indexing) Storage Decoding (Retrieval/ Reading) Destination • Better called “Technical Communication Theory” • Communication may be over time and space

16. Human Communication Theory? Message Message Source Encoding Decoding Destination Channel Noise

17. The Conduit Metaphor • Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another • In writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings in the words • Words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others • In listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words

18. Toolmakers’ Paradigm

19. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Photo Project Introduction

20. Origins • Very early history of content representation • Sumerian tokens and “envelopes” • Alexandria - pinakes • Indices

21. Origins • Rhetorical mnemonic theory and practice (“memoria”) • Memory palaces • An organization and retrieval technology for concepts that combines physical and virtual places (“loci”) • Examples • Simonides of Ceos • Cicero’s “testes”

22. Origins • Biblical indexes and concordances • Hugo de St. Caro – 1247 A.D. : 500 monks – KWOC • Book indexes (Nuremburg Chronicle) • Library catalogs • Journal indexes • “Information explosion” following WWII • Bush and Memex • Cranfield studies of indexing languages and information retrieval • Development of bibliographic databases • Index Medicus – production and Medlars searching

23. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Photo Project Introduction

24. Photo Project Goals • Develop an ongoing resource for SIMS (an annotated photo database) that can be used for internal research and teaching, as well for external promotional and informational purposes • Experience the actual process of information organization and retrieval (especially as regards metadata creation and use) • Work in small, focused teams performing a variety of tasks in image acquisition, cataloging, and application design

25. Photo Project Requirements • Create engaging and useful application scenarios and photos about life at SIMS • Create a shared, reusable resource of annotated photos • All photos will be stored in one directory • Design your metadata • So that all photos would be accessible from all applications • Not only for the needs of your particular application, but also for the reusability of your photos and metadata • Protect people’s privacy • If you photograph a clearly identifiable person or persons and intend to use the photo, make sure to get a signed release form

26. Photo Project Equipment

27. Moore’s Law

28. Moore’s Law for Cameras 2000 2002 $400 Kodak DX4900 Kodak DC40 $ 40 SiPix StyleCam Blink Nintendo GameBoy Camera

29. Photography in IS 202 Photography Tutorial By Kim Chambers

30. Introduction • Each time you take a photo, you make choices, either accidentally or deliberately • Helpful tips for creating interesting photographs • In class we will be using tiny “StyleCam Blink” digital cameras

31. Helpful Tips • Content • Framing a subject • Lighting • StyleCam Blink Camera

32. Content • Decide how much of a scene to show • Get closer to the subject: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough” ROBERT CAPA • Use the background when it contributes something

33. Close to Your Subject

34. Too Far Away From Subject

35. Background Contributes to Scene

36. Framing a Subject • How does your subject relate to its surroundings? • Vertical or Horizontal? • Hold camera • Vertical for vertical subjects • Horizontal for horizontal subjects

37. Good Use of Vertical Framing

38. Bad Use of Capturing Subject

39. Lighting • Natural light (indoors or outdoors) rarely strikes a subject evenly • There is no flash on this camera • Make sure you have enough light for your subject • Indoor photography with the StyleCam benefits from the use of artificial light sources (e.g., lamps, flashlights) • Avoid backlighting

40. Good Indoor Lighting

41. Bad Indoor Lighting

42. Indoor Backlighting

43. Outdoor Light

44. StyleCam Blink Camera • Upload your photos before replacing or removing the battery so you don’t lose all your images • Moving the camera while taking a photo, taking a photo of a moving object OR shooting in low light = BLURRY PHOTOS

45. Blurry

46. Once Again… • Content • Get closer to subject • Framing a subject • Vertical for vertical • Horizontal for horizontal • Lighting • Make sure you have enough light • Avoid backlighting your subject • StyleCam Blink Camera • Fixed focus • No flash • Hold the camera still when taking a photo

50. Photo Project Hand Outs • Photo Project Overview • Photo Project Groups • Photo Project Camera Instructions • Photo Project Release Forms