A terrific article in the Princeton Alumni Weekly on the Center for Information Technology Policy, directed by UW CSE Ph.D. alumnus Ed Felten.
“The center’s interests extend well beyond voting machines. CITP’s director and driving force is Ed Felten, an affable, boyish-looking 47-year-old who holds joint appointments in computer science and public affairs. One of his claims to fame came in 2000, when he testified that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser could be detached from the Windows operating system, thereby assisting the U.S. government in its historic antitrust case. More recently, he and his graduate students have shaken up the computer-security world with a string of striking papers. In 2006, they demonstrated that a method Sony was using to protect its DVDs from piracy introduced security risks in users’ computers. In 2008, they showed that hackers could steal information from a laptop even when it was turned off.”
Read the full article here. Read more →
CSE professor Josh Smith treats his new (and as yet unnamed) Willow Garage PR2 humanoid robot to a trip to Reboot. Read more →
An effort by students and faculty from CSE, Human-Centered Design and Engineering, and the Information School to design a low-cost portable ultrasound system for use in the rural developing world has received a $100,000 “Grand Challenges Explorations” grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – one of 65 grants awarded among more than 2,400 applicants.
Read the UW press release here. Read about the project and its participants here. Learn about Change, the cross-campus collaboration under which dozens of remarkable projects such as this take place, here. There’s a nice video describing the project here. Read more →
On Thursday, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) unanimously approved a report reviewing the 14-agency, $4.3 billion Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program, representing the Nation’s entire unclassified R&D portfolio in computer science and related fields.
The 14-person Working Group assisting with the review was co-chaired by Ed Lazowska and David Shaw, who discussed the report on Thursday.
In summarizing the Findings, Lazowska noted:
“America’s NIT R&D efforts have been hugely successful. This is amply evident, and authoritatively documented, with impacts ranging from accelerating the pace of discovery in nearly all other fields, to driving our economic competitiveness …
“This impact arises from a deep tradition of research, in which the Federal government plays an essential role …
“Recent technological and societal trends place the further advancement and application of NIT squarely at the center of our Nation’s ability to achieve many of our most important priorities, in areas such as improved health care, improved energy efficiency, improved transportation systems, national security, education, and open government.”
A video of the presentation is available here. A rough transcript of Lazowska’s remarks is available here. Posts regarding the PCAST session may be found here and here. Read more →
Stanford President John Hennessy spoke to a packed house on November 2 in the UW Computer Science & Engineering Distinguished Lecturer Series on “The Future of Our Research Universities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Talk video linked here. Photographs here. Read more →
TechFlash reports on the Intel Labs Seattle open house, held on November 1.
“I’ve never seen so many 3D depth-sensors in my life.
“That’s what struck me on Monday afternoon as I snooped around Intel Labs Seattle, near the University of Washington campus. …
“Intel Labs Seattle operates in cooperation with the University of Washington, with Intel researchers and UW students working closely together on projects that explore the potential for ‘context-aware, sensor driven systems.’ Dieter Fox, an associate professor in the UW Department of Computer Science & Engineering, is the latest member of the UW faculty to serve a three-year term as director of the Intel lab.
“Intel has two other similar labs in the United States, at UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University. The labs are focused on research, not product development, but the idea is to show what could be possible in future generations of shipping technology.”
Read the full TechFlash post here.
Seattle Times video here. Read more →
Emo is extensively quoted in the article “Seeing the Natural World With a Physicist’s Lens.” Read the article here. Read more →
UW CSE’s Bruce Hemingway’s sculpture “Regina Sprocket (robot critic)” was recently displayed at the Seattle Museum of miniature Art (Kirkland Arts Center). Wonderful photographs here. Read more →
Seattle Magazine has named UW CSE’s Zoran Popovic and his UW Biochemistry collaborator David Baker among its 2010 “Most Influential” for their collaboration on the protein folding game Foldit.
“’We’re involving people in science in a way that produces results that you can’t get any other way,’ says Popovic. ‘It’s democratizing science.’”
Read the article here. Play Foldit here. Read more →
Halloween is near, and that means it’s time for the annual UW CSE pumpkin carving TGIF. Eyuccch! Photos here. Read more →
