Category: Uncategorized

Hello everyone,

This is my first post for 2018 (hooray!) and hopefully not the only one. I am writing this blogpost because a paper in which I was a leading author (together with some amazing co-authors) recently got published on IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (IEEE COMST). Yes, it is a survey paper, it took me a really long time to write it and that’s why it needs a special blog post.

The paper is called “Towards Haptic Communications over the 5G Tactile Internet” and is a survey on the most important technologies and methodologies that will allow teleoperation with haptic feedback over 5G networks to become reality in the future.

One thing I found difficult when writing this paper was that because the topic is multidisciplinary, I had to find the correct balance to mix “all the cuisines in a single plate” (thanks Aravindh!). I had to satisfy the COMST audience, mostly interested in the 5G networking aspect, but also mention important aspects and challenges of bilateral control systems theory and haptic data processing.

You can either download a pre-print version of the paper here (link is under “Documents” section), or you can visit IEEE Xplore if you have access.  Same thing basically.

Last but not least, many special thanks to all co-authors for their valuable contributions, help and support, but, also to the IEEE COMST anonymous reviewers for their suggestions that really helped in improving the manuscript.

Udi Goren made a video using my Creative Commons licenced music. The song is called “Waterdrops that miss you” from the album “Scream of a butterfly“. Great stuff:

Flow from Udi Goren on Vimeo.

Seriously, It was an embarrassing moment when I had to deal with the comments in my previous post as all I wanted to do is give people some piece of info on how to make their life easier using gnome-do. What I didn’t notice was that gnome-do is written in Mono (which I don’t dislike as it is hard for me to disapprove).

Carl van Tonder suggested gnome-launch-box and yes I had to give it a try and I did. So either go to Add/Remove Software (I use Fedora 13), or go to the terminal and type or copy/paste : su -c “yum install -y gnome-launch-box”

now you have installed gnome-launch-box. What is next, is to create a short-cut with your compositing window manager (I have compiz fusion). Go to the settings manager of compiz and then at General -> Commands. At the “Commands” tab go to “command line 0” (or whatever you want) type gnome-launch-box. Then go to the “Key bindings” tab and at Run command 0 (or whatever number you previously chose) enable it and then create the short-cut you wish. And now we are done!

==In Greek/Στα ελληνικά==

Ώρα για την εξιλέωση! Αφού το gnome-do είναι λίγο ευαίσθητο από νομικής άποψης (λόγω του Mono) και δεν θέλουμε τέτοιους μπελάδες στο pc μας, προτείνω λοιπόν το gnome-launch-box.  Μπορούμε πολύ εύκολα μέσω του Add/Remove Software, γράφωντας το όνομα (με τις παύλες) ή μέσω του τερματικού (su -c “yum install -y gnome-launch-box”) να εγκαταστήσουμε το πρόγραμμα.

Για να το λειτουργήσουμε εύκολα όπως και το gnome-do μπορούμε να δημιουργήσουμε μια συντόμευση πληκτρολογίου για να το καλούμε όποτε θέλουμε. Εγώ χρησιμοποιώ το compiz fusion. Στο settings manager του compiz πάμε στο General -> Commands. Έπειτα στην καρτέλα “Commands” πάμε στο “command line 0” (ή σε όποιο νουμεράκι επιθυμούμε) και γράφουμε την εντολή gnome-launch-box. Στην διπλανή καρτέλα “Key bindings” επιλέγουμε το “run command 0” (ή το νουμερο που επιλέξαμε πριν), ενεργοποιούμε και δημιουργούμε την συντόμευση που θέλουμε. Και είμαστε έτοιμοι!

Hi again,

I’m back to Greece. No more vacations 😦 . Fortunately, I had really good time 🙂 .

Both Thursday and Friday were spent in Prague. I need to mention that on Thursday I had lunch at U Fleku. I had a goulash and 2 glasses of “U Fleků” beer which was just perfect!

Friday went a lot better than I had predicted due to the rainny weather. I had an espresso at the Prague Castle area and afterwards I visited the GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship and cheered for the greek team. The view from the 24th floor of the Corinthia Hotel was astonishing.

Freedom & Beer Lover

Hello everyone,

As you may have noticed from the title of the post I have set foot in Czech Republic since Saturday. I am having really good time, met many people (ok not as many as possible :P) and seen many beautiful places, monuments and buildings. I almost forgot to mention the beers :P. Can’t wait to make the of best of it as long as I’ll stay here. I’m staying at Hradec Králové at a friend’s house who studies Pharmacy here.

Saturday – Not much to do. Plain landed at 6 p.m. Took the bus to Mustek and then went to Hlavní Nádraží to get to Hradec Kralove by train (1,5 hour distance). Later on we went to a bar (had beer and a Long island iced tea and stayed till after midnight.

Sunday – Had a walk at Hradec Králové. Went at the center of the city, walked by one the two rivers running through the city (walked through bridges, visited parks, statues, squares etc)

Monday –  Took the train to go back to Prague. I really enjoyed the view of the countryside. Finally at Prague, what a beautiful city. The streets, the buildings, the people. Lots of tourists. I feel like the city is on the move but I not in front of my eyes. I guess that means I am really on vacation. I went to a Torture instruments museum. Freaky , huh?

But the best part of Monday was that I went to the roof of the Dancing House at Praha 2:

Tuesday – As busy as Monday. Went to Prague Castle and had a walk around the area. The view from up there is beautiful. Unfortunately, we had to leave to Hradec Kralove.

Wednesday – Just a break from my holidays to make new plans, charge batteries ( litteraly and metaphorically), relax and go back to Prague tomorrow. Oups!  I’ts Thursday allready. There’s a lot I did but didn’t mention.  Got to go though…2 days left.

Me at the Charle’s Bridge