I see a trend in COM 3362: the first three of you have proposed 
a project related to what you do at work. Maybe this is 
a new role of advanced object-oriented systems: to act
as a technology transfer course from the DARPA and NSF projects I am
involved with, my 20+ years of software development
experience and the papers I read.

The benefits of such a project are:

For you:

1. You can explore a wider design space by testing out new ideas
   which you could not afford to try at work alone.
   You can build some prototype which will help the design of your
   product.
2. You get expert advice. I have consulted for many companies with 
   a daily rate above your course tuition.
   You also get expert advice from your fellow students which will
   be equally valuable. Students in the Demeter Research group could
   also make important contributions to your project.
3. The course is better tied to your current interests yet you will learn
   new knowledge useful well beyond your current project.

For me:

1. I see into interesting projects which might open new research problems.
   The projects will also guide what we discuss in class.
2. My funding agencies like to see our research applied to
   commercial products.

I fully support such technology transfer projects and I find
them very interesting. Ideally
you should do a product design influenced by some new ideas
and you should do a prototype implementation, maybe only a a small part
of your design, depending on its scope.

In the next class we need to talk about:

1. Intellectual property rights. Some of you have already given
   me company private information. While I respect such
   informal agreements, your companies lawyers might see
   a danger here.

2. How can you turn in your project if it contains company private
   information. This has happened with a project at HP in COM3360.
   http://www.ccs.neu.edu/research/demeter/evaluation/conventional-env/hp.html

3. Class dicussions: Could it happen that company private
   information leeks out during class discussions related to
   your project?

I am sure we can find a way around those issues.

-- Karl