Fwd: [Theory-annc] TCS+ : an online seminar series

[Inge Li Gørtz]

Berkeley are making their Theory seminar available to people all over the world. See below.

-Inge

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	[Theory-annc] TCS+ : an online seminar series
Date:	Sun, 27 Jan 2013 15:11:07 -0800
From:	Anindya De <ani...@eecs.berkeley.edu>
To:	theor...@tempo.cs.berkeley.edu

Dear fellow TCSers,

Ever wished you could attend that talk -- if only you didn't have to
hike the Rockies, or swim across the Atlantic, to get there; if only
it could have been scheduled the following week, because this week is
finals; if only you could watch it from your desk, or for that matter
directly from your bed?

Starting this semester TCS+ will solve all your worries. We are
delighted to announce the initiation of a new series of *online*
seminars in theoretical computer science. The seminars will be run
using the "hangout" feature of Google+. The speaker and slides will be
broadcast live as well as recorded and made available online. Anyone
with a computer (and a decent browser) can watch; anyone with a webcam
can join the live audience and participate.

Our goal is to make engaging talks accessible to the widest possible
audience, ensuring a carbon-free dissemination of ideas across the
globe.

We're still in beta, and we welcome any feedback from the community.
There will undoubtedly be glitches at first, but we hope you'll bear
with us and be as excited as we are at trying out the possibilities of
this new medium.


Now for some more practical information:

Inauguration talk
------------------
Speaker: Ronald de Wolf, CWI, Amsterdam.
Title: Exponential Lower Bounds for Polytopes in Combinatorial Optimization.
(Based on the paper from STOC'12 with Samuel Fiorini, Serge Massar,
Sebastian Pokutta and Hans Raj Tiwary that won the best paper award.)
Date: Wednesday 2013/2/6
Time: 5pm UTC (that's 9am PST, noon EST, and 6pm CET).

Following talks
----------------------
We initially plan to hold one seminar every two weeks. The second
seminar will take place on February 20th and be given by Anup Rao from
University of Washington. The next speaker will be Raghu Meka from IAS
on March 6th.

We welcome suggestions for speakers! Feel free to email us or post
suggestions directly on the TCS+ community page on Google+.

How to join?
------------------
If you have a Google+ account, simply add the "TCS+" community to one
of your circles. For more technical information, see our webpage at
https://sites.google.com/site/plustcs/. We'll keep updating it as the
first seminar comes closer.

Google hangouts can only accommodate 10 "active" participants
simultaneously. Active participants are those who are part of the live
hangout, and can ask questions through the video feed; others can
watch, and ask questions by posting text comments. We encourage groups
to join together as active participants by organizing an independent
"viewing party". Priority will be given to such groups. To reserve one
of the 10 available spots, post a comment in reply to the talk
announcement on Google+.

Practice run
------------------
We will have a practice "hangout" two days before the first seminar,
Monday 2013/2/4, as 5pm UTC. It will be announced on the Google+ page.
The goal is to allow anyone (including us!) to test the hangout
feature and their own technical equipment.

More information
-----------------------
We have a website https://sites.google.com/site/plustcs/ where you'll
also find a calendar of future seminars to which you can subscribe. We
also included more technical information for the speakers and the
audience. Please post further questions directly on the TCS+ page on
Google+ so that they are visible to everyone.

Precedents
----------------
For the curious, the idea for this series came in part from a similar
such series that's been successfully running for over a year in
quantum information. It's called Q+, and you can find more information
on their website (including videos of previous talks) here
https://sites.google.com/site/plusquant/ or on their Google+ page.


Looking forward to seeing you all online soon,

The organizers,
Anindya De, Oded Regev and Thomas Vidick


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