The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing, on behalf of 77 computer scientist signatories, that the justices should review an inexplicable lower court decision finding that application programming interfaces (APIs) are copyrightable. That decision, in a case in which Oracle sought to copyright the Java API, up-ended decades of settled legal precedent and industry practice.
Among the 77 computer scientists on behalf of whom EFF filed the brief are UW CSE professor Ed Lazowska, UW CSE Ph.D. alums Jeff Dean and Ed Felten, and UW CSE Bachelors alum Tim Paterson.
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What’s the methodology? We couldn’t care less! We’re Number Four!
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The room was packed with representatives from architectural and engineering firms who came to learn about the CSE-II project – the project formerly known as LevyTown.
Check out reports on the project in GeekWire and the UW Daily. And listen to Ed Lazowska’s statement of the case on GeekWire Radio. Read more →
The UW Daily reports:
“The UW Computer Science & Engineering department (CSE) recently proposed a dramatic expansion to satisfy the demand for its education and research.
“On Oct. 24, the UW backed the department by submitting an official request to architects for the design of a new, additional CSE building (CSE II) …
“‘We have built one of the best computer science departments in the country and I think we’ll continue to improve, to provide better education and more opportunities for more students,’ [CSE chairman Hank] Levy said …
“‘We have a value proposition … [which] is great education, great research, and also broad impact [of these],’ [CSE professor Ed] Lazowska said. ‘Computer science is at the heart of just about everything these days …’
“With CSE II, the department will be able to provide more interdisciplinary activities for interested students from all majors, according to Gaetano Borriello, CSE undergraduate admissions chair.”
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Rising Stars in EECS is an annual workshop that brings together women who are advanced graduate students and postdocs in electrical engineering and computer science and are interested in careers in academia, for two days of scientific interactions and career-oriented discussions.
Student participants included Tamara Bonaci (UW EE), Nicki Dell (UW CSE), and Justine Sherry (UW CSE Bachelors alum, now a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley). UW CSE professor Anna Karlin participated on a faculty panel.
UW CSE was a sponsor of this year’s Rising Stars in EECS workshop, which was held at UC Berkeley. Read more →
Rosie the Robot demonstrates how she has trained UW CSE professor Maya Cakmak
A group of UW CSE alums and friends toured four UW CSE robotics labs this evening: Emo Todorov’s Movement Control Lab, Dieter Fox’s Robotics and State Estimation Lab, Raj Rao’s Neural Systems Lab, and Maya Cakmak’s Human-Centered Robotics Lab. Read more →
Congratulations to UW CSE Ph.D. student Rajalakshmi Nandakumar, who just received the “Best Presentation” Award at SenSys 2014, the 12th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems.
The paper, “Feasibility and Limits of Wi-Fi Imaging,” describes work done by Rajalakshmi and fellow UW CSE Ph.D. student Donny Huang as first-year students, working with UW CSE professor Shyam Gollakota. Read more →
USAID has announced four new grants to winners of the joint USAID-Humanity United Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention. The grants will help recipients partner with an operational NGO or an established human rights group to further develop and pilot their innovations to document atrocities and facilitate communication for those at risk.
The award to UW CSE focuses on the work of Ph.D. student Aditya Vashistha, supervised by professor Gaetano Borriello. The project – Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Junction – is a flexible voice-communication tool that allows users with limited connectivity or literacy to record and listen to posts, while the global community can access them online. Aditya will partner with two local organizations in sub-Saharan Africa to connect low-tech users and members of marginalized communities, such as refugees and asylum seekers.Read more here. Learn about IVR Junction here. Read more →
Several years ago, Belkin International acquired Zensi, a “smart home” energy and water sensing startup from the lab of UW CSE+EE professor Shwetak Patel. Zensi’s technology became the heart of Belkin’s WeMo home automation ecosystem.
Today, Belkin announced the creation of WeMo Labs in Seattle.
“‘With a thriving tech industry and an immense talent pool surrounding UW’s world-renowned Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering programs, Seattle is ground zero for recruiting the top data scientists, software engineers, and developers in the country,’ said Patel, who also serves as Belkin’s Chief Scientist. ‘WeMo Labs will continue to benefit from a long-standing relationship with the Ubicomp Research Lab and other UW organizations such as the eScience Institute.’
“‘Establishing a larger presence in Seattle and collaborating with the University of Washington is a direct investment in the future of WeMo,’ said Chet Pipkin, founder and CEO of Belkin. ‘We’re looking for this team to help us fast track groundbreaking technologies from the lab to the marketplace, keeping WeMo at the forefront of the Internet of Things.'”
Read more here. GeekWire article here. Seattle Times article here.
And check out a great GeekWire compendium of companies that have recently opened engineering offices in Seattle – here. Read more →
