Research into the privacy and security of implantable medical electronics by UW CSE’s Yoshi Kohno and his collaborators continues to receive press attention following former Vice President Dick Cheney’s recent revelation that the wireless capabilities of his pacemaker/defibrillator had been disabled for security reasons:
“Many of the doctors hung up on him, Dr. [Kevin] Fu [of the University of Michigan] said, adding, ‘They thought I was crazy to worry about the security of a device in the chest.’
“Finally, he got together with a colleague, Tadayoshi Kohno, a computer security researcher at the University of Washington. The two investigators and their colleagues set to work seeing if they could breach the security of a defibrillator that had been removed from a patient’s chest.
“The defibrillator and the device used to program it communicated in their own language from a distance no greater than a few inches, Dr. Kohno said. The group figured out the language by turning various therapy commands on and off.
“‘We would intercept the communications,’ Dr. Kohno said. ‘Aha – this is the command that means ‘turn on,’ this is the command that means ‘turn off.’’ After they learned the communication language, ‘we could generate the commands ourselves.’
“At that time, ‘security was not on the radar yet for the medical device community,’ Dr. Fu said. ‘But there was a rapid trend toward wireless communication and Internet connectivity. We definitely raised awareness.'”
Read more here. Read more →
UW CSE chair Hank Levy joins UW Provost Ana Mari Cauce on the Husky Stadium field prior to the UW/Cal game. Read more →
We admit it – there were more people eating and drinking than there were carving.
The real question is who’s going to be the first to encounter our cleaning staff on Monday morning … Read more →
UW CSE alum Ankur Jain is co-tech-lead of the team at Google that builds and operates YouTube’s content distribution network. In awarding Google YouTube a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences said:
“Since YouTube’s founding in 2005, the world is surprised on a daily basis by the creativity, inspiration and passion that the planet’s most creative people bring to the YouTube platform. Each month, a billion people watch more than 6 billion hours of video. Each minute, creators upload 100 more hours for the world to watch. To meet this fundamental engineering challenge, the YouTube team has created new, innovative ways to upload, store, manage and deliver all kinds of video programming to viewers the instant they want to watch it …
“Together, these achievements have fundamentally changed the way an entire generation thinks of and experiences television.”
Congratulations, Ankur. Don’t drop it! (Read more here.) Read more →
UW CSE and EE professor Shwetak Patel is one of a number of Seattle-area innovators featured in displays at the Bezos Center for Innovation at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry.
In connection with the dedication event for the Bezos Center for Innovation several weeks ago, Shwetak participated in an “Hour of Power” during which he posed provocative questions to Seattleites of all ages.
The newly-relocated and expanded MOHAI is spectacular – you should visit if you haven’t. And in its Bezos Center for Innovation, you’ll see numerous references to Shwetak, Daniela Witten, and other extraordinary UW faculty members. Read more →
In the wake of the cleanup from UW CSE’s Industry Affiliates meeting, we ask you: Tracy or Tina? Who has the huge iridescent blueberry shoes, and who has the petite iridescent watermelon shoes?
Leave your ballot with Rebecca at the front desk! Read more →
Fifty six companies and many hundreds of UW CSE students (plus more than a few interlopers) packed the Microsoft Atrium and the Bill & Melinda Gates Commons today for our “established company” recruiting day. (Startup recruiting day was Tuesday; Industry Affiliates research day was Wednesday.) It was bedlam!
A list of the companies who were recruiting his here – we wish we had the space to accommodate more!
We host recruiting days twice each year – in October and in January. It’s a unique opportunity for CSE students to interact with companies specifically interested in recruiting elite software engineers. Read more →
Hank Levy with Madrona Prize recipients and Madrona’s Tim Porter
The Madrona Prize (for the research project presented at the UW CSE Industry Affiliates Meeting that was deemed to have the greatest potential for commercialization) went to Ambient Back Scatter: Battery Free Communication; Aaron Parks, Vincent Liu, and Vamsi Talla.
Runners-up were:
The People’s Choice Award – chosen by balloting among attendees at the Open House poster session – went to Complex behavior synthesis using minimum instructions; Vikash Kumar. Read more →
Each year, Madrona Venture Group awards The Madrona Prize to the student research project presented at UW CSE’s Industry Affiliates Meeting that has the greatest commercial potential.
GeekWire reports on this year’s Madrona Prize winner and runners up:
“The impressive work coming out of University of Washington’s computer science department was on full display Wednesday evening inside the Paul G. Allen Center.
“As part of the University of Washington’s Industry Affiliates Annual Meeting, nearly 100 research groups made up of more than 200 grad students showed off their work in a poster and demo session. Industry representatives, regional alumni and friends of the department were on hand to see everything from eyes-free yoga to home gesture recognition with Wi-Fi.”
Read more here. Read more →
