Allen School News Archive

“The Indus civilization, which flourished throughout much of the third millennium B.C., was the most extensive society of its time … About 22 years ago, in Hyderabad, India, an eighth-grade student named Rajesh Rao turned the page of a history textbook and first learned about this fascinating civilization and its mysterious script. In the years that followed, Rao’s schooling and profession took him in a different direction – he wound up pursuing computer science, which he teaches today at the University of Washington in Seattle – but he monitored Indus scholarship carefully, keeping tabs on the dozens of failed attempts at making sense of the script. Even as he studied artificial intelligence and robotics, Rao amassed a small library of books and monographs on the Indus script, about 30 of them. On a nearby bookshelf, he also kept the cherished eighth-grade history textbook that introduced him to the Indus.”

Read the article here. Read more →

A Microsoft video interview of UW CSE professor Luis Ceze, one of five recipients nationwide of 2009 Microsoft New Faculty Fellowships.  See the interview here. Read more →

On Wednesday July 22, UW CSE faculty members Brian Curless, Yoky Matsuoka, Zoran Popovic, and Steve Seitz will present an “Interactive Media Technology Showcase” co-sponsored by Enterprise Seattle and UW TechTransfer.

The event, which runs from 9:00-6:30, will be held at Enterprise Seattle, 1301 5^th Avenue #2500.

Announcement here.

Speaker biographies here and talk topics here.

Registration information here. Read more →

Imagine having the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publish a paper of yours, and in the same issue, a paper explaining your paper.  UW CSE professor Emo Todorov, whose research concerns optimal control, no longer has to imagine it.  Start with the explanation, here.  Then brave the paper, here.  When you’re done, send a note to PNAS telling them that in their next life they should choose a name with a different acronym. Read more →

KUOW (Seattle’s NPR station) interviews UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska regarding the Amazon.com Kindle DX pilot program that will be launched by UW and six other colleges and universities this fall.

Streamed version of the interview here.  MP3 download here. Or listen from your browser below.

Not exactly newsworthy, but too good to pass up.  Read the post here. Read more →

UW CSE’s friend and year-long visitor Kai Li is interviewed in Xconomy regarding his startup Data Domain, much in the news lately.

“Now I know why venture capitalists walk the halls at the University of Washington – you never know who you might run into. My timing was impeccable yesterday as I sat down with Kai Li, the co-founder and chief scientist of Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP), the Santa Clara, CA-based data storage company that just got bought by EMC (NYSE: EMC) for $2.1 billion in cash.”

Read the full article here. Read more →

“The Pentagon’s research agency has historically maintained a tight relationship with the computing research community. Civilians may recognize some results: the Internet, personal computing, and high-performance computer graphics, says the University of Washington’s Edward D. Lazowska.

“But that relationship ‘has become less close in recent years,’ says Mr. Lazowska, the university’s Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering …

“Now new leaders are taking over the agency. And Mr. Lazowska says ‘we’re looking forward to restoring’ a relationship whose deterioration is ‘bad for the field, bad for the nation, and bad for the nation’s defense.'”

Read the Chronicle of Higher Education article here. Read more →

The UW Daily discusses UW CSE’s Kindle DX pilot program.

“‘The big value is having the content when you need it,’Lazowska said. ‘It will only get better when more and more academic content becomes available.'”

Learn more about the pilot here.

Read the full UW Daily article here. Read more →

“When a cell phone or credit-card bill arrives, each call or purchase is itemized, making it possible to track trends in calling or spending, which is especially helpful if you use a phone plan with limited minutes or are trying to stick to a budget. Within the next few years, household utilities could be itemized as well, allowing residents to track their usage and see which devices utilize the most electricity, water, or gas. New sensor technology that consists of a single device for each utility, which builds a picture of household activity by tracing electrical wiring, plumbing, and gas lines back to specific devices or fixtures, could make this far simpler to implement.

“Shwetak Patel, a professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington, in Seattle, developed the sensors, which plug directly into existing infrastructure in buildings, thereby eliminating the need for an elaborate set of networked sensors throughout a structure. For example, an electrical sensor plugs into a single outlet and monitors characteristic ‘noise’ in electrical lines that are linked to specific devices, such as cell-phone chargers, refrigerators, DVD players, and light switches. And a gas sensor attaches to a gas line and monitors pressure changes that can be correlated to turning on a stove or furnace, for instance.

“Now, Patel and his colleagues have developed a pressure sensor that fits around a water pipe. The technology, called Hydrosense, can detect leaks and trace them back to their source, and can recognize characteristic pressure changes that indicate that a specific fixture or appliance is in use.

“Patel hopes to incorporate electrical, gas, and water sensors into a unified technology and has cofounded a startup, called Usenso, that he hopes will start offering combined smart meters to utility companies within the next year or so. The goal, says Patel, is to make a ‘smart home’ universally deployable.”

Read the full article here. Read more →