NewsFlash: College of Engineering in the Media | Vol. 2, No. 9 | Jan. 9, 2009 | A publication of the College of Engineering and uwnews.org, the UW Office of News and Information

CoE NewsFlash | Vol. 2, No. 9 | Jan. 9, 2009

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 Hannah Hickey at (206-543-2580, hickeyh@uw.edu).

Nov. 26, 2008 | Scientific American
Nanomachines powered by light

Solar power is great for converting light energy into electricity. But what about harnessing light energy directly? After all, photons—discrete packets of light energy—exert force themselves, albeit on a pretty small scale. In a new study, a electrical engineer Michael Hochberg and researchers from Yale University report doing just that.

	Nov. 26, 2008 \| The Seattle Post-Intelligencer UW scientists part of breakthrough in optical nanotechnology The goal of using light particles, photons, rather than clumsy old electrons to improve upon—and further miniaturize—all manner of computers and electronic devices appears a step closer to reality thanks to researchers in Seattle and at Yale University.

Dec. 1, 2008 | Columns magazine
Brilliance unleashed

A profile of 28-year-old nanophotonics "wunderkind" Michael Hochberg and his dog, Cassandra.

Dec. 3, 2008 | The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Professor's work erases technological barriers

For computer scientist Richard Ladner, it isn't so much about helping people who are blind or deaf get better use of technology as it is about working with people who have disabilities to help us all get better use out of technology. "Few people seem to be aware that a lot of mainstream technologies started out as access technologies," he said.

RELATED MATERIAL
Can you see me now?' Sign language over cell phones comes to United States | Aug. 21, 2008
Online service lets blind surf the internet from any computer, anywhere | June 25, 2008

Dec. 2, 2008 | The Seattle Times
Researchers work on developing sign language for cellphones

Texting over your cellphone works fine to instruct, remind or arrange a meet time. If you want company or context, however, you use it the old-fashioned way and speak. It's no different for the deaf and hard-of-hearing who sign. Electrical engineer Eve Riskin and computer scientist Richard Ladner and their team have created software with enough processing power to support real-time, two-way video on cellphones.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Can you see me now?' Sign language over cell phones comes to United States | Aug. 21, 2008

Dec. 5, 2008 | Technology Review
Back-button to the future

Huge quantities of information are never more than a few clicks away on the Web, but it's not always easy to see what things were like yesterday. A new tool called Zoetrope, developed by computer scientist Dan Weld and doctoral student Eytan Adar, is designed to help track such information by letting users browse backward through time.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Pinning down the fleeting Internet: Web crawler archives historical data for easy searching | Nov. 17, 2008

Dec. 5, 2008 | Gizmodo
Adobe builds Web time machine called Zoetrope

University of Washington and Adobe researchers have constructed a time machine that lets you view any Web page over time, scrolling to see changes in data. But the Zoetrope software that lets you watch pricing or news-story changes over time has even headier magic powers, too.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Pinning down the fleeting Internet: Web crawler archives historical data for easy searching | Nov. 17, 2008

Nov. 26, 2008 | ABC News
Centerpiece of high-end computing: cell phones

Computer scientist James Landay and his team are coming up with clever new ways to turn the cell phone into an environmental monitoring system that can tell if you're getting enough exercise, and if you could do just a little more to help make this planet more user-friendly.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Track your fitness, environmental impact with new cell phone applications | Nov. 19, 2008

Nov. 25, 2008 | KING5
UW students develop new online social networking technology

Sharing photos online can be a bit scary for Facebook and MySpace users because they don't necessarily want everyone to see everything. But a new tool, developed by UW computer science doctoral student Michael Toomim, could soon change online social networking.

Dec. 5, 2008 | Air Force News
Three officers get spots on space shuttle missions

Three Air Force officers serving as NASA astronauts received orders Friday for flights into orbit aboard the space shuttle. Lt. Col. James P. Dutton Jr., who got his master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics at the UW, will fly as pilot aboard STS-131 in February 2010.

Dec. 26, 2008 | The Seattle Times
Bring NASA space shuttle to Seattle's Museum of Flight

The Seattle Times editorial board writes that the Museum of Flight, headed by UW Engineering alum Bonnie Dunbar, would be a fine home for one of three NASA space shuttles that will be lent or donated to museums in 2010. Seattle's aerospace heritage and the area's links to the shuttle program—including the UW College of Engineering, which worked on the Shuttle's aerodynamics and the heat-absorbing tiles, and graduated some of its engineers—make the region a worthy host for a shuttle.

Dec. 17, 2008 | The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Airbus tests fuel-saving winglets
Blended winglets—the large sail-like structures at the end of the wing—allow big jets to save fuel in an industry that's trying to go "green." The winglets were invented by Louis Gratzer, UW alum and former professor in the aeronautics and astronautics department, at a local company founded by UW alum Joe Clark.

Oct. 30, 2008 | Sciencentral
Robofish can communicate and 'hunt' together

In what amounts to a small swimming pool in the basement of a building on the UW campus, a member of aeronautical engineer Kristi Morgansen's group is steering a radio-controlled toy shark along the bottom of the pool. Nearby, three robots that look and act surprisingly like fish are tracking the toy.

SOURCE MATERIAL
School of Robofish provides basis for teams of underwater robots | June 5, 2008

Nov. 29, 2008 | Slashdot
An optimized GUI based on users' abilities
UW computer scientist Dan Weld and doctoral student Krzysztof Gajos have recently developed a system, which, for the first time, offers an instantly customizable approach to user interfaces. Each participant in the program is placed through a brief skills test, and then a mathematically-based version of the user interface optimized for his or her vision and motor abilities is generated.

SOURCE MATERIAL
For your eyes only: Custom computer interfaces make clicking faster, easier | July 15, 2008

Nov. 22, 2008 | The New York Times
The online search party: A way to share the load

Opportunities for social networking abound on the Internet, but not when it comes to one standard job: using a browser and search engine to comb the Web for information. That task is still typically done solo. Meredith Ringel Morris, a Microsoft researcher and UW affiliate professor of computer science and engineering, has developed an alternative.

Dec. 11, 2008 | Xconomy
Healionics scores $2.6M angel backing to promote healing around medical devices

Good news this morning from Redmond, WA-based Healionics, founded by UW bioengineer Buddy Ratner. The company, which develops technology to promote healing around implantable medical devices, has raised $2.6 million in a second round of angel financing.

	Dec. 21, 2008 \| The Olympian Budget plan has money for South Sound projects The Olympian lists construction projects included in the recent state budget. The UW has several construction projects in the budget, including $53.5 million for a new building to house molecular engineering and related interdisciplinary fields.

Jan. 1, 2009 | The Seattle Times
Get brain in gear for new year

Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large talks with John Medina, affiliate professor of bioengineering, about how to take care of our brains.

Dec. 26, 2008 | CNN.com
New displays show visionary potential

As our mobile devices get smaller and smaller, so do the screens for viewing mobile content. Since 2004, UW electrical engineer Babak Parviz and his team have been working to develop a "bionic" contact lens, of which the most basic function would be to display information to the wearer.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision | Jan. 17, 2008

Aug. 28, 2008 | Nature
The future ain't what it used to be

Nature reviews the book "Future Proof" by Nick Sagan, son of Carl Sagan. The reviewer writes that the only trouble is that science moves so quickly that some entries in the book are already out of date. For example, UW electrical engineer Babak Parviz and colleagues' contact lens, a possible first step toward Terminator-style displays.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision | Jan. 17, 2008

Dec. 16, 2008 | US News & World Report (via Entrepreneur.com)
A leash on your laptop

Sure, your laptop has passwords, encrypted logins and biometric fingerprint readers. But what happens when the entire laptop is swiped? Say goodbye to the $1,000-plus asset and everything on it. In July, UW computer scientists Tadayoshi Kohno, Arvind Krishnamurthy and students developed a new offering.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Just in time for school: Free Adeona service tracks stolen laptops | Sept. 25, 2008

Jan. 1, 2009 | Technology Review
RFID's security problem

Are U.S. passport cards and new state driver's licenses with RFID truly secure? Not everyone is convinced that new security cards are a good idea. UW computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno is quoted.

Jan. 1, 2009 | Wired
Jargon watch: 'cloaker'

Wired magazine's Jargon Watch column includes an entry for "cloaker: a device to keep heartless hackers from altering the radio-controlled settings on pacemakers." UW researchers previously found that such a hack is possible.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Researchers find implantable cardiac defibrillators may expose patients to security and privacy risks; potential solutions suggested | March 11, 2008

Nov. 26, 2008 | The Daily (UW)
UW engineering students help local businesses save energy

With saving energy and money the focus of many today, a campus organization known as the Industrial Assessment Center, led by electrical engineer Alexander Mamishev, is offering free energy-efficiency assessments to local small and mid-size facilities. Undergraduate students Andrew Martin and Jeff Morris are quoted.

SOURCE MATERIAL
Save money and resources: free energy assessments for 20 Seattle-area businesses | Nov. 12, 2008

Dec. 5, 2008 | The Seattle Times
Metal band Helms Alee sees imperfection as a good thing

Ben Verellen, a UW senior in electrical engineering, performs guitar and vocals in Helms Alee, a local trio specializing in "heavy-duty, gut-churning rock." The 28-year-old Verellen also started a business building and selling guitar amplifiers.

If you have a newsworthy result about one month from publication, presentation or demonstration, please contact Hannah Hickey, hickeyh@u.washington.edu. Notice of student and faculty awards and grants is also welcome.