We ask applicants to our Computer Science and Computer Engineering major programs to tell us why they’re interested in Computer Science & Engineering. Here are some responses from this quarter’s incoming students:
After taking CSE 143 and creating a Sudoku game application, it sparked a latent interest within me for programming. In addition, I developed a mentality for programming and I knew that was what I wanted to pursue as a career. I believe computer science will have a capacity… Read more →
Remembering Ben Taskar
We remember our friend and colleague Ben Taskar on what would have been his 37th birthday, March 3 2014.
His wife Anat asks, “I was hoping we could, as a community, each take a moment this week to perform a simple, random act of kindness to commemorate Ben’s life and giving spirit.”… Read more →
Gary Kildall and the 40th Anniversary of the Birth of the PC Operating System
David Laws of the Computer History Museum has written a lovely history of UW CSE Ph.D. alum Gary Kildall’s seminal role in the PC revolution:
“Late one afternoon in the fall of 1974, in the sleepy California seaside town of Pacific Grove, programmer Gary Kildall and electronic engineer John Torode [also a UW CSE Ph.D. alum] ‘retired for the evening to take on the simpler task of emptying a jug of not-so-good red wine … and speculating on the future… Read more →
The New York Times on educational inequality
“The demise of opportunity through higher education is, fundamentally, a political failure …
“The worst problems … occur at for-profit schools like those run by the Apollo Group (which owns the University of Phoenix), the Education Management Corporation or Corinthian Colleges. These schools cater to low-income students and veterans, but too often they turn hopes for a better life into the despair of financial ruin.
“Nearly all of their students take out loans to attend, and the amounts are staggering.… Read more →
Fortune: 20% of the world’s 25 most admired companies are from Seattle!
Amazon.com (2), Starbucks (5), Costco (12), Nordstrom (17), and Microsoft (24).
Go team! Read more here.… Read more →
UW CSE WinterFest
Friday marked the annual UW CSE WinterFest, presented by the UW CSE ACM student chapter and sponsored by Facebook (thank you!)
Food … games … music …
Students, faculty, and staff had a terrific time!… Read more →
UW CSE startup SNUPI Technologies featured in Seattle Business magazine
UW CSE startup SNUPI Technologies (co-founded by faculty Shwetak Patel and Matt Reynolds, graduate student Gabe Cohn, and alum Jeremy Jaech) is featured in this month’s Seattle Business magazine:
“The so-called internet of things, in which objects transfer data without requiring human interaction, is so hot that Google recently invested $3.2 billion in Nest Labs, which sells a ‘smart’ household thermostat that learns the owner’s behavior to reduce energy use.
“This infatuation isn’t lost on SNUPI Technologies, which is debuting… Read more →
AllSee: Bringing Gesture Recognition To All Devices
AllSee is the first gesture-recognition system that can operate on a range of computing devices including those with no batteries. AllSee consumes three to four orders of magnitude lower power than state-of-the-art systems and can enable always-on gesture recognition for smartphones and tablets. It extracts gesture information from existing wireless signals (e.g., TV transmissions), but does not incur the power and computational overheads of prior wireless approaches.
UW CSE’s Shyam Gollakota, Bryce Kellogg, and Vamsi Talla are the innovators.… Read more →
UW CSE Ph.D. alum Jason Yi-Bing Lin named Taiwan’s Deputy Minister of Science and Technology
A partial ROC Cabinet reshuffle was announced February 26 by Premier Jiang Yi-huah.
The premier named Chang San-cheng the inaugural Minister of Science and Technology, and named 1990 UW CSE Ph.D. alum Jason Yi-Bing Lin as Deputy Minister with a portfolio that includes the National Science Council, Taiwan’s NSF. Jiang emphasized the importance of continuing the NSC’s tradition of cultivating a strong fundamental research capability, assisting academia to direct its resourceful creativity toward innovative entrepreneurship, and enhancing the global competitiveness… Read more →
Google Research Awards to CSE’s Anderson, Gollakota, Kemelmacher, Weld
UW CSE professors Tom Anderson, Shyam Gollakota, Ira Kemelmacher, and Dan Weld have been named as recipients in the latest round of Google Faculty Research Awards.
Google received 691 proposals from 46 countries on 6 continents, and made 115 awards.
Other UW recipients were Jeff Bilmes (EE; CSE adjunct professor), Chris Rudell (EE), and Jake Wobbrock (iSchool; CSE adjunct professor).
UW CSE Ph.D. alums fared extraordinarily well in the competition: Hadi Esmaeilzadeh (Georgia Tech faculty), Zack … Read more →