NewsFlash is a monthly email of press items featuring our College's researchers. For a more complete and regularly updated list of COE media coverage, see In the Media.
Click on a headline to read that article on the web. Some links may require a subscription or no longer be active.
NewsFlash is a service of the UW College of Engineering and the UW Office of News and Information. If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, please contact Michelle Ma at mcma@uw.edu@uw.edu or (206) 543-2580.
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NewsFlash, January 2011
Jan. 31, 2011 | Seattle Times: Brier Dudley's blog
UW starting silicon photonics foundry service
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Drawing on the expertise of new faculty members and industry support, UW electrical engineer Michael Hochberg is starting a new foundry service for researchers developing silicon photonic chipsets. |
New center aims to dramatically lower barrier to making silicon photonic chips
Feb. 01, 2011 | Xconomy
UW, backed by Intel and U.S. Military, sets up center to merge electronics, photonics
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The University of Washington is hoping to spark a new kind of alliance to help scientists experiment with designs for faster, more energy-efficient optoelectronic chips that compute using both electrical impulses and photons of light. |
New center aims to dramatically lower barrier to making silicon photonic chips
Feb. 01, 2011 | Puget Sound Business Journal: TechFlash blog
Q&A: Why the UW and Intel are betting on silicon photonic chips
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The University of Washington today will debut a new program that aims to help researchers and startups get their hands on silicon photonic chips -- aiming to usher in a new generation of faster, low-power computer processors that carry data using light, replacing or supplementing electrons. |
New center aims to dramatically lower barrier to making silicon photonic chips
Jan. 31, 2011 | Xconomy
Encouraging women in industry to apply for faculty jobs
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Electrical engineer Eve Riskin provides some reasons why women working in industry should consider applying for faculty jobs. Riskin's OnRamps into Academia program helps ease such a transition. |
Encouraging women scientists in industry, government to enter academia
Jan. 31, 2011 | BBC
Easing pain for burn victims using virtual reality
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Patients in the US are being helped to escape the pain of burn injuries by immersing them in the virtual reality of a computer game during treatment. SnowWorld is developed by mechanical engineer Hunter Hoffman. |
Virtual reality significantly reduces pain-related brain activity
Jan. 28, 2011 | seattlepi.com
UW students turn wine into water
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Vintages from the Palouse, Nota Bene and Adytum wineries will be poured Monday night in a UW Engineers Without Borders fundraiser to support potable water projects in remote Andes villages in Bolivia. |
Engineers Without Borders hosts dessert and wine fundraiser, silent auction
Dec. 29, 2010 | Seattle Business
The New Steel
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Boeing’s carbon-composite 787 fuselages recently made headlines. But for years, Washington companies have been showing that carbon fiber is the new steel. Mechanical engineer Mark Tuttle and alumnus Peter Janicki are quoted in this cover story, and the UW's Center for Advanced Materials in Transport Aircraft Structures and Lamborghini Lab are mentioned. |
UW's newly named 'Lamborghini Lab' brings composite parts to sports-car arena
Jan. 14, 2011 | Science News
Meet the Growbots
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Not many cyberspecialists would forgo motherboards for mother love. But computer scientist Rajesh Rao has a rationale for spending time in a developmental psychology lab: He wants to create a robot that sponges up knowledge, baby-style. |
I want to see what you see: Babies treat "social robots" as sentient beings
Jan. 19, 2011 | The Seattle Times
The Budget Breakdown: Trimming higher ed may erode job opportunities
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A feature article looks at possible effects of state budget cuts on the UW's College of Engineering. Engineering dean Matt O'Donnell, civil and environmental engineering chair Greg Miller, and former computer science professor Brian Bershad are quoted. |
Jan. 04, 2011 | KOMO TV
Using a video game to save lives
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Students at the UW are hacking Microsoft's Kinect with the goal of saving lives. Graduate students Fredrik Ryden and Hawkeye King, working with UW electrical engineers Howard Chizeck and Blake Hannaford, hacked into the Kinect to add sensory feedback for surgical robotics. |
Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research
Jan. 18, 2011 | Popular Science
Turning Microsoft's $150 Kinect into a $50,000 piece of surgical equipment
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Surgical robots might allow precise operation in tiny places our unwieldy human hands can't go, but using those robots removes the surgeon's valuable sense of touch. UW electrical engineering graduate students decided to use a hacked Microsoft Kinect to give that sense back. |
Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research
Jan. 25, 2011 | Bloomberg Businessweek: GigaOM blog
Kinect and the power of big broadband
| Innovative uses of game technology show the need for fatter broadband pipes and the possibilities offered by greater speed, such as remote robot-assisted surgery, writes Bloomberg columnist Om Malik. UW's project to adapt the Kinect for robotic surgery is mentioned. |
Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research
Jan. 01, 2011 | Calgary Herald
Researcher wants web to 'forget' your past
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What if the Internet had a delete button, so a future boss or mother-in-law was never able to see that photo of you wearing a garbage-can hat on New Year's Eve, or read a teenage status update about illicit drug use? Computer scientist Yoshi Kohno and colleagues' Vanish could put a virtual expiration date on sensitive e-mails, chat messages and Facebook posts. |
This article will self-destruct: A tool to make online personal data vanish
Jan. 05, 2011 | BBC World Service
Will it ever be possible to permanently delete online data?
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What if there were way of scrubbing data from the internet so that it could never be found? Computer scientist Yoshi Kohno talks about a UW project, Vanish, that aims to do just that. |
This article will self-destruct: A tool to make online personal data vanish
Jan. 06, 2011 | Technology Review
Car theft by antenna
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Car thieves of the future might be able to get into a car and drive away without forced entry and without needing a physical key, according to Swiss researchers. Computer scientist Yoshi Kohno is quoted. |
Media alert: Presentation on the security of modern automobiles
Jan. 10, 2011 | New Scientist
Smart contact lenses for health and head-up displays
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Lenses that monitor eye health are on the way, and in-eye 3D image displays are being developed too – welcome to the world of augmented vision. Electrical engineer Babak Parviz's research is cited. |
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision
Jan. 14, 2011 | PC World
Smart contact lenses could bring augmented reality to the next level
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If electrical engineer Babak Parviz gets his way, having to use a smartphone (or 3D glasses, for that matter) might be a thing of the past, through microelectronics and transparent materials that don’t bother your eyes. |
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision
Jan. 01, 2011 | Seattle Magazine
UW scientist Henry Lai makes waves in the cell phone industry
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Bioengineer Henry Lai never set out to link cell phones to cancer, but his work—and efforts to discredit him—suggest that he was on to something. Ironically, with funding for independent research virtually nonexistent, we may never know for sure. |
Jan. 03, 2011 | Time: Ecocentric blog
Problem with your iPhone alarm? Here's a tip: Don't use your phone as an alarm
| A glitch in the iPhone's calendar software prevented alarms set over the New Year's weekend from working, causing thousands of people to be late for work. There's enough worrying data, this blogger says, to make it worthwhile to reduce your exposure to cell phone radiation. Research by bioengineer Henry Lai is cited. |
Jan. 22, 2011 | Wall Street Journal
Be a gamer, save the world
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Videogames make players feel like their best selves. Why not give them real problems to solve? An essay by games researcher Jane McGonigal mentions Foldit, developed by UW computer scientist Zoran Popovic. |
Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding
Jan. 10, 2011 | The New York Times
RNA game lets players help find a biological prize
| EteRNA is a new online video game that challenges players to fold RNA molecules in new ways. The game is in some ways a successor to protein-folding game Foldit, created at the UW. EteRNA creators Adrien Treuille of Carnegie Mellon and Rhiju Das of Stanford met when they were both postdocs at the UW. |
Gaming for a cure: Computer gamers tackle protein folding
Jan. 25, 2011 | Womens eNews
U.S. students design ultrasound for Ugandan midwives
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A low-cost ultrasound system is on its way to Uganda in early summer. Produced by UW undergraduates working with human centered design and engineering professor Beth Kolko, it's intended to help midwives battle the high death rate in the country's rural areas. |
Undergraduates' low-cost ultrasound system wins Gates Foundation grant
Jan. 25, 2011 | Xconomy: Boston
Are startup-hungry MIT MBAs sleepless in Seattle?
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UW computer engineering alum Ryan Thurston returned to Seattle after getting his MBA at MIT. Thurston makes the case for Seattle as a technology hub, citing UW spinouts Farecast and Impinj. The other component to the “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” he writes, is the UW, which has highly ranked programs in computer science, electrical, mechanical and chemical engineering. |
Jan. 04, 2011 | Xconomy
Skytap, fresh off Boston-led $10M financing, seeks to make cloud computing work better
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Xconomy does an in-depth article on UW spinout Skytap, which just got $10 million more in venture capital funding. The company was founded in 2006 by computer science professors Brian Bershad, Hank Levy, and Steve Gribble, as well as grad student David Richardson. |
Jan. 07, 2011 | KUOW: The Conversation
University of Washington innovator Shwetak Patel
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Seattle Business Magazine recently named a UW computer science professor Seattle's Top Innovator of 2010, and the technology news website TechFlash named him newsmaker of the year. Shwetak Patel came up with a device that monitors how much energy your appliances use. |
UW energy- and water-sensing technology acquired by Belkin
Home's electrical wiring acts as antenna to receive low-power sensor data
Jan. 06, 2011 | Aviation Week
Wind tunnel testing begins for Stratos
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The team developing the Stratos 714 single-engine personal jet reported yesterday that the project had received enough third-party funding to conduct wind tunnel tests of a 1/8th scale model. Those tests are expected to take place in April, probably at the University of Washington. |
Jan. 03, 2011 | Bike World News
USA Cycling Development Foundation awards four scholarships
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Devon Simpson of Kirkland, a sophomore in Aeronautics & Astronautics, is one of four student-athletes to receive the annual John Stenner and Joshua Kuck Memorial Scholarships. |
If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, please contact Hannah Hickey, hickeyh@uw.edu. Notice of student and faculty awards and grants is also welcome.