H79.2316 Lecture 4 Credits
Instructor(s): O'Sullivan
In an ordinary conversation, a person's body language registers as much as their spoken language. When a computer or a computer network mediates the conversation the context is usually filtered out leaving only the text to be conveyed. This class looks at techniques for conveying a fuller range of expression over the Internet. You will begin by programming simple chat servers and work towards building tools for transmitting video. Along the way you will learn techniques for making synchronous TCP and UDP, connections, formatting, compressing and parsing data, client/server and peer to peer architectures, connecting with physical computing devices, and realtime analysis and synthesis of video images. Another goal of this class is for you to learn to program using Java. Java basics will be covered "as needed" for these specific networking techniques covered. This is more of a "by example" class than a comprehensive introduction to Java. ICM is sufficient preparation and this class does not require any previous Java programming experience. It is also fine for students to substitute languages that they already know like Director or Flash for some client interfaces.
