Zensi, an energy monitoring company based on technology developed by UW CSE professor Shwetak Patel and collaborators, has been purchased by Belkin.
Zensi’s technology was licensed from the University of Washington and from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Patel’s Ph.D. institution. The technology includes single-point-of-attachment sensors for electrical power, water, and natural gas — a single sensor in a home or business uses signal processing and machine learning to identify sources and rates of consumption. This dramatically reduces the cost of instrumenting the home or business and providing occupants with the information they need to behave in more economical and environmentally responsible ways.
According to Patel, this is just the beginning for using software to help consumers better conserve energy. “This puts UW on the map as a premier place for energy work in the residential space,” says Patel.
Xconomy article here. TechFlash article here. Seattle Times article here. CNET article here. Yahoo! Finance article here. Technology Review article here. Belkin press release here.
UW CSE “Sustainability Sensing” research overview here. Read more →
UW CSE Ph.D. alumnus Zack Ives, a professor in Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania, has been honored with the 2010 Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, Penn’s highest teaching honor.
Ives “has since been a leader in curricular innovations, developing courses on Internet and database systems in which students build their own search engines or database-powered websites. ‘I never imagined an individual student could achieve so much,’ said one student. A recent alumnus who works at Google echoes, ‘there is not a day that goes by at my job that I do not take into consideration the skills and information that I learned in Professor Ives’ class.’”
Congratulations Zack! Read the Penn press release here. Read more →
UW CSE’s Gaetano Borriello spoke at the TEDx Seattle conference on Friday April 16.
“Gaetano’s team is working on turning the mobile phone into a medical device in its own right … The camera can turn into a scope, taking pictures of the inside of ears to detect infection. It becomes an entire doctor’s bag … The idea is to magnify human resources through the introduction of technology …”
Read the post here. Learn about Open Data Kit here.
NEW: YouTube here. Read more →
Network World reports on incidents of academic dishonesty in introductory Computer Science courses, with a lot more perspective than other recent articles on the subject.
“‘The truth is that on every campus, a large proportion of the reported cases of academic dishonesty come from introductory computer science courses, and the reason is totally obvious: we use automated tools to detect plagiarism,’ explains Ed Lazowska, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. ‘We compare against other student submissions, and we compare against previous student submissions and against code that may be on the Web. These tools flag suspicious cases, which are then manually examined’ …
“‘Does anyone in their right mind think that [cheating] isn’t happening in large introductory courses in other fields? If so, they’re smoking something,’ Lazowska says. ‘There have been several cases in which faculty in other disciplines have adapted these tools to detect plagiarism in term papers, and have found plagiarism rates far greater than typically encountered in computer science courses’ …
“Lazowska says rising enrollment in computer science courses is a more important trend than the resulting increase in plagiarism cases. ‘An ever-broader range of students is recognizing that, even if they major in something else, college-level preparation in computational thinking is essential,’ Lazowska says. ‘There is no reason to believe that computer science students are anything other than better than ever.'”
Read the article here. Read more →
CNN reports on a research presentation by UW CSE Ph.D. student Tamara Denning.
“Nathanael Paul likes the convenience of the insulin pump that regulates his diabetes. It communicates with other gadgets wirelessly and adjusts his blood sugar levels automatically. But, a few years ago, the computer scientist started to worry about the security of this setup. What if someone hacked into that system and sent his blood sugar levels plummeting? skyrocketing? Those scenarios could be fatal. ‘If your computer fails, no one dies,’ he said in a phone interview. ‘If your insulin pump fails, you have problems.’ As sci-fi as it sounds, Paul’s fears are founded in reality.”
Read the article here. Read more →
UW CSE’s Raj Rao, whose research focus is computational neuroscience, undertook a “labor of love” project to decipher ancient Indus script. A recent article in IEEE Computer presents a nice overview of this incredibly interesting project. Read more →
Yoky Matsuoka, Anne Proctor (Ciara's mom), Ciara Proctor, Jill Ross (NCWIT), Lucy Sanders (NCWIT), and Lauren Dougherty (Mattel, back to camera) in the Atrium of the Allen Center
Yoky Matsuoka and Ciara Proctor in the UW CSE Neurobotics Laboratory with graduate student Brian Dellon
UW CSE’s Yoky Matsuoka was selected as one of “10 Women to Watch in 2010” by Mattel, in connection with a Barbie promotion. (You’ll recall that Mattel is rolling out “Computer Engineer Barbie” later this year.) The 10 are an amazing group — check it out here.
In connection with this, and in support of “Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work® Day,” Yoky mentored Illinois high school student Ciara Proctor on April 14. Representatives of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), who nominated Ciara, participated.
Congratulations to Yoky and Ciara!
See a KCPQ-13 video news segment on Ciara’s visit to UW here. Read more →
Ed Lazowska
UW CSE’s Ed Lazowska has received the 2009 ACM Distinguished Service Award “for his wide-ranging service to the computing community and his long-standing advocacy for this community at the national level.”
ACM’s press release goes on to note: “Lazowska served as co-chair of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 2003-05, where he championed the importance of computing in achieving federal priorities. He served for six years on the National Research Council’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) and made major contributions to NRC and CSTB studies involving the information technology innovation ecosystem, the role of information technology in improving learning and in countering terrorism, and the management of university intellectual property.
“Lazowska also chaired the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association (CRA), the NSF CISE Advisory Committee, and the DARPA Information Science And Technology (ISAT) Study Group. Recently, he was instrumental in creating and chairing the Computing Community Consortium, an NSF-sponsored effort to engage the computing research community in envisioning more audacious research challenges.”
For his technical accomplishments, Lazowska has been elected a Member the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a Fellow of ACM, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). For his service contributions, Lazowska has previously received the Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award, the ACM Presidential Award, and the University of Washington Outstanding Public Service Award. Read more →
UW CSE Ph.D. students Yaw Anokwa and Yingyi Bu are among twenty-two exceptional Ph.D. students from across the nation selected to be part of Yahoo!’s 2010 Key Scientific Challenges (KSC) Program.
Congratulations to Yaw and Yingyi!
Addendum: It has been observed that Yahoo! appears to favor students whose names begin with Y. In future years we will adjust our nomination process accordingly. Read more →
UW CSE’s Yoky Matsuoka has been highlighted as one of “The Barbie® ’10 Women to Watch in 2010.'” In connection with this, Yoky will mentor high school student Ciara Proctor in support of “Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work® Day” on April 14. Read more →
