“Typically, robots respond well to precise instruction sets but they are flummoxed if their instructions are given in the fuzzy, everyday language so beloved by humans. Now, a team at the University of Washington in Seattle has developed translation software which could enable robots to understand a set of natural-language directions …
“Cynthia Matuszek and her colleagues used the principles of machine translation – commonly used online to translate text of one language into another – to develop a… Read more →
“On the frontiers of synthetic biology”
Georg Seelig is featured in UW’s Trend in Engineering.
“Seelig describes himself as a molecular programmer. ‘We use nucleic acids as nanoscale building material for molecular circuitry. We can take advantage of design ideas from computer science and electrical engineering to build new programmable biological circuitry. The goal is to build complex control circuits that can behave similarly to existing biological circuits such as gene regulatory networks,’ Seelig said.”
Read the article here.
His team has built nucleic-acid logic… Read more →
UW CSE animation “Kings” selected for Seattle International Film Festival
“Kings,” UW CSE’s 2008 Animation Capstone film, as been selected from among more than 3,000 entrants to be screened at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Kings will be screened as an “official selection” during SIFF’s Short Film Weekend (May 21-23) at the new state-of-the-art SIFF Cinema where all formats are brilliantly projected.
SIFF is the largest and most well-attended film festival in the United States, with 150,000 attendees expected in 2010. With extensive local, national and international media coverage,… Read more →
Zensi, Shwetak Patel’s Energy Monitoring Startup, Purchased by Belkin
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… Read more →
CSE Ph.D. alum Zack Ives wins University of Pennsylvania Lindback Award for teaching
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… Read more →
“Personalizing Public Health”
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… Read more →
Network World discusses cheating in introductory Computer Science courses
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… Read more →
“Scientists work to keep hackers out of implanted medical devices”
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… Read more →
“Probabilistic Analysis of an Ancient Undeciphered Script”
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 →
“I Can Be”
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… Read more →