Beneath their smooth exteriors, modern computers behave in wildly unpredictable ways. UW CSE faculty members Luis Ceze, Mark Oskin, and Dan Grossman and UW grad students Owen Anderson, Tom Bergan, Joseph Devietti, Brandon Lucia, and Nick Hunt have found a way to “tame” multiprocessor computers.
“‘With older, single-processor systems, computers behave exactly the same way as long as you give the same commands. Today’s computers are non-deterministic. Even if you give the same set of commands, you might get a different result,’ Ceze said.”
The team has developed a way to get modern, multiple-processor computers to behave in predictable ways, by automatically parceling sets of commands and assigning them to specific places. Sets of commands get calculated simultaneously, so the well-behaved program still runs faster than it would on a single processor.
Read the full UWeek article here. More info on the group’s research is here. Read more →
Google’s new bicycle route mapping feature, launched today, bears a strong UW CSE imprint.
The project was conceived by UW CSE alum Andy Schwerin. Among the 7 engineers on the team were UW CSE alums Scott Shawcroft and Ryan Sturgell. The Site Director of the Google Seattle engineering office, where the work was done, is former UW CSE faculty member Brian Bershad.
Read a Seattle Times article here. Read more →
OneBusAway, a suite of tools to make using public transit easier for King County riders, has won the Washington Technology Industry Association’s 2010 Industry Achievement Award in the category “Best Use of Technology in the Government, Non-Profit, or Education Sector.”
OneBusAway is the passion of UW CSE graduate student Brian Ferris.
Congratulations to Brian and the OneBusAway team! Try it! Read more →
Microsoft ITPAC
Steve Ballmer
CSE Atrium
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, will discuss what’s ahead for computing, with a particular focus on how cloud computing will change the way people and businesses use technology. The event will take place on Thursday March 4 at 10 a.m. in the Microsoft Atrium of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. Plentiful open seating and standing room will be available. Please join us for what’s sure to be an interesting talk about the world of tech.
A portable Microsoft datacenter, housed in a cargo container, will be available for tours all day long. Microsoft’s IT Pre-Assembled-Component (ITPAC) is one example of the company’s strategy to modularize the entire datacenter. During the tour, learn about the design decisions and functionality that will power the next generation of technology.
See Microsoft information on the talk, plus webcast information, here. Dan Reed blog post here. Microsoft “Azure cloud science” TechFest web page, including a UW oceanography collaboration, here. TechFlash post here. Xconomy post here.
Maps and directions here. UW webcast information here. Web-archived videos of the event will be linked here and from the Microsoft site.
Following the event: TechFlash post here. Xconomy post here. Seattle Times article here. Seattle PI article here. c|net here. eCommerce Times here. Photographs by Bruce Hemingway here. Photographs by Microsoft here. Read more →
Trinh Huynh
Brandon Lucia
Congratulations to UW CSE’s Brandon Lucia and Trinh Huynh, who have just received IBM Graduate Fellowships! Brandon works on computer architecture with Luis Ceze, and Trinh works with Paul Beame on theoretical computer science. Read more →
Anne Condon
Anne Condon, Professor of Computer Science and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Strategic Initiatives at the University of British Columbia, and a UW CSE Ph.D. alumna, has received the 2010 Computing Research Association A. Nico Habermann Award. Anne was recognized for her long-standing and impactful service toward the goal of increasing the participation of women in computing research.
This award honors the late A. Nico Habermann, who led Carnegie Mellon’s computer science department and NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, and who was deeply committed to increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing research.
The 2008 recipient of the Habermann Award was UW CSE professor Richard Ladner, Anne’s Ph.D. advisor!
Read the CRA post here. Read more →
The UW Daily reports on UW CSE’s participation in the Amazon.com Kindle educational pilot project.
“The Kindle went through a pilot test at seven universities across the nation to see how students would react to the product as a tool for school. The CSE Department handed out 42 Kindles this year to the department’s graduate students as part of the trial program … Overall, the responses of CSE graduate students highlighted just how often students take for granted the layout and effectiveness of regular, physical textbooks.”
Read the article here. Read more →
Annually, IEEE Micro re-prints a small number of “Top Picks” from the preceding year’s research publications in computer architecture. One of this year’s “Top Picks” was the paper “DMP: Deterministic Shared-Memory Multiprocessing” by UW CSE’s Joseph Devietti, Brandon Lucia, Luis Ceze, and Mark Oskin.
Special issue table of contents here. DMP paper here.
Congratulations to Joseph, Brandon, Luis, and Mark! Read more →
The New York Times features several projects from UW CSE’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but in cyberspace it might be. Computer science researchers at the University of Washington and Cornell University are deploying a system that will blend teamwork and collaboration with powerful graphics algorithms to create three-dimensional renderings of buildings, neighborhoods and potentially even entire cities …
“The PhotoCity game is already being played by teams of students at the University of Washington and Cornell, and the researchers plan to open it to the public in an effort to collect three-dimensional renderings in cities like New York and San Francisco. Contestants will be able to use either an iPhone application that uses the phone’s camera, or upload collections of digital images.
“In adopting what is known as a social computing or collective intelligence model, they are extending an earlier University of Washington research effort that combined computing and human skills to create a video game about protein folding.
“The game, Foldit, was released in May 2008, allowing users to augment computing algorithms, solving visual problems where humans could find better solutions than computers. The game quickly gained a loyal following of amateur protein folders who became addicted to the challenges that bore a similarity to solving a Rubik’s Cube puzzle.”
Read the article here. Play PhotoCity here. Play Foldit here. See all the great work from UW CSE’s Graphics and Imaging Laboratory here. Read more →
Network World profiles “10 hot computer science schools,” including the University of Washington.
“Enrollment in the top U.S. computer science programs as well as applications for next year are up significantly, as more college students discover that their job prospects are better — and their starting salaries higher — if they have a computer-related degree. Here are the latest enrollment figures from 10 of the hottest computer science schools in the nation.”
The article starts here. The UW profile is here. Read more →
