Web Development Live

Texas’ community colleges offer more than just basic classes for students hoping to enter the technical workforce or transfer to a four-year university. The colleges also offer capstone courses that prove a graduate’s expertise in a particular field.

A mandate issued by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board requires students studying workforce-related industries such as business studies, health sciences, advanced technologies and applied technology at Austin Community College and other Texas community colleges to enroll in a capstone class.

The class consolidates two years’ worth of education in a particular field at a community college into a class, group, portofolio or individual project, or a final exam that is completed during the student’s graduating semester, said Mike Midgley, ACC’s vice president of workforce education and business development.

ACC video game development students are required to complete a capstone project in the form of an art portfolio or design project pertaining to the student’s field, Zuzolo said.

He said the gaming program’s capstone courses allow students to show their proficiency and capability in developing video games. The projects produced in the course make up a portfolio and help secure positions in the industry, Zuzolo said.

For his capstone project in Webmaster design, ACC alumnus Bob Million showcased his skill in Web page design by launching two Web sites.

Million received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and management from ACC before entering the school’s Web site design program. Million owns Million Design Group, an Austin-based Web site design company.

“I wanted to learn specific skills from the program,” Million said. “From the courses I took and the projects I completed with ACC, I had the skills to start my own business.”

Capstone courses are also a common requirement for undergraduates and graduates at four-year universities and institutions, which officials and professors say help culminate students’ academic experience.

UT School of Information graduate students must complete a capstone class in their final semester, which integrates the students’ professional education and specific area of study.

Information studies graduate student Adam Knowles said the program is similar to an internship. Graduate students find positions at an institution where they can assimilate into their vocational environment.

Developers praised the programming experience and the potential of Google’s Android mobile platform at the Google I/O conference as the company emphasized its flexibility and showed cool new features.

There was a lot of buzz around Android at the conference, which covers all areas of Google development, and an “Introduction to Android” session was full. Google wants the technology to open up the mobile industry, where developers have faced hurdles getting applications ported to many different operating systems and approved by carriers. But Android will enter the fray as just one mobile platform among many, including the Apple iPhone SDK.

The latest prototype version of Android drew comparisons to the iPhone after it was demonstrated during a keynote session Wednesday morning. Google showed a home screen with colorful widgets similar to the Apple iPhone’s, plus a compass and a status bar that can be pulled down in any application to view messages. The compass, which could be built into a handset along with an accelerometer, would be able to orient maps according to which way the user was facing. As demonstrated with Google Maps Street View, it could show the exact view that a user was looking at, with street-name and address information built in to the map. Videos of the demonstrations were posted by the Android Community blog.

Aside from features on high-end phones, Android will reach far more people than the iPhone platform, if it meets its potential, said Atif Iqbal Chaudhry, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the conference. The platform could be extended to inexpensive phones with a smaller set of capabilities for average consumers, he said.

Android is an easy way to begin developing a mobile application, because Google provides all the pieces required, unlike some other platforms, such as PalmOS, Chaudhry said. He has been developing location-based applications through the PC-based emulator software for Android and said he is looking forward to trying out the software in the field on a real handset.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are pushing Android as more open than other mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session. In addition, there won’t be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators, he said.

Developers will also be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks that come with Android, such as the address book, Chen said. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. For users, that will mean being able to control their own experience by downloading their favorite third-party versions, Chen said.

Google expects the first Android-based devices to hit the market in the second half of this year and will make the finished software platform available to developers after that, so anyone can create their own phone platform, Chen said. The core elements of it will be released under the Apache open-source license.

Until all parts of Android are complete, Google won’t start translating the platform and documentation into languages other than English, Chen said in response to a question. The team doesn’t want translations to lag behind the current information, he said. But he welcomed an attendee to help Spanish-speaking developers by translating materials or participating in message boards.

Developers praised the platform, in which applications are written in the Java programming language and then compiled for the Dalvik virtual machine.

“It’s sweet,” said Free Beachler, owner of Longevity Software, in Boulder, Colorado. Beachler wrote an entry for the Android Developer Challenge, a competition to find the 50 best Android applications. His software, designed to store itineraries, contacts, destinations and other travel information for users on their phones, didn’t make the top 50. But he’s working on two projects for Android Developer Challenge 2, which will take place after handsets are out and the platform are complete.

Beachler, a Web developer, said it took time to learn to use Android but once he did it was logically organized and easy to use. He compared it to languages such as PHP for Web development.

Enterprises are asking R Systems International, a software services company in El Dorado, California, to write applications that work on any mobile platform, said Harsh Verma, vice president for global innovative research at R Systems. One way to do this is on browsers, but there are problems with that, including differences among mobile browsers and the need for a network connection, he said. Verma hasn’t yet started working with Android but believes it could reach a broad range of devices.

University of Massachusetts scientists have developed a new robot friend just for Grandma and Grandpa.

The “uBOT-5” can dial 911, do household chores, remind elders to take their meds and allow health-care workers and loved-ones to pay virtual visits via a built-in Web video monitor.

“In the next couple of years, there’s going to be an explosion of robots like this that I think are going to come pretty close to being ready for home use,” said Patrick Deegan, a graduate student at UMass-Amherst’s Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics and member of the uBOT-5 devlopment project ASSIST. The university announced the robot’s development this month.

A market for the robot is being created by U.S. demographics that will see 77 million baby boomers set to retire in the next 30 years - straining the resources of a health-care field charged with caring for an elderly population that far outnumbers those of past generations.

“We’d like to see a robot like the uBOT-5 being used in controlled situations like hospitals or nursing homes in the next five years,” Deegan said.

The uBOT-5 - equipped with a Web cam, a microphone and a touch-screen - allows doctors and other medical professionals to check on patients remotely. The robot also can apply a digital stethoscope to transmit information to doctors or EMTs.

While the uBOT-5 is far from cute and cuddly, its design is inspired by human anatomy, said Deegan.

With an an array of sensors that act as eyes and ears, the robot can detect human activity and “sense” when something is amiss, such as a fall. Its two Segway-style wheels mimic human legs, giving it greater dexterity than the clunkier, bottom-heavy robots found in many science labs today, he said.

The robot was developed in collaboration with western Massachusetts elder-care centers, which allowed the uBOT team to learn about the preferences of potential users - a preference for a robot that can do chores, for instance.

“They’ll provide the comfort of keeping your house clean, emptying the dishwasher or picking up the trash,” Deegan said.

The robot is now in the research and development phase. The university owns the intellectual property, but Deegan and his team are launching a company and hope to commercialize the robot for in-home use.