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CoE
NewsFlash | Vol. 4, No. 1 | April 29,
2010 |
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). |
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March 30, 2010 | BusinessWeek
America's
most promising startups: MicroGREEN
Prompted
by demand for sustainable materials and high oil prices that make
plastic more expensive to produce, MicroGREEN is commercializing a
method to pump air bubbles into plastics and expand the material to five
times its original size. The technology is a spin-out from mechanical
engineer Vipin Kumar's lab.
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April 2, 2010 | TechNewsWorld
Prefab may give
any software open sourciness
Prefab
doesn't touch an application's source code. It gets its apparently
unlimited capabilities for modifying software by futzing with the pixels
that display on the screen. The companies that issue software licenses
-- and their lawyers -- may be less sanguine about the tool's potential
than its developers and the many computer users who might like to
customize their desktops.
SOURCE
MATERIAL
What if all software was open source? A code to unlock
the desktop | March 30, 2010
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April 5, 2010 | Gizmag
Prefab
makes all software open source
Computer
scientist James Fogarty has managed to add customization and
accessibility options to proprietary software without even touching the
source code. Rather than alter program code, Prefab looks for the pixels
associated with the blocks of code used to paint applications to a
screen, grabs hold of them and then alters them according to whatever
enhancements the user has chosen to apply.
SOURCE
MATERIAL
What if all software was open source? A code to unlock
the desktop | March 30, 2010
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April 28, 2010 | Technology
Review
Home sensor
startup snapped up
If
you knew how much electricity your plasma television used or how much
water your dishwasher drank at different times of day, would you change
your habits to conserve more and spend less on utilities? Shwetak Patel,
a UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering and
electrical engineering, believes that you might.
SOURCE
MATERIAL
UW energy- and water-sensing technology acquired by
Belkin | April 22, 2010
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April 21, 2010 | CNET
Belkin buys
crafty power-tracking startup
Electronics
and wireless equipment maker Belkin is getting deeper into energy
management as it acquires a small company with technology that detects
how electricity is used within a home. By interpreting electrical
variations on a building's wiring, the system can detect when different
appliances are turned on and off and can create a profile on electricity
consumption. One device plugged into the wall could, for example, tell a
person how much electricity a refrigerator uses or how much money was
spent on stand-by power for a TV.
RELATED
MATERIAL
UW energy- and water-sensing technology acquired by
Belkin | April 22, 2010
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March 12, 2010 | Wired
UK
AMARSi
project could see robots learn from co-workers
If
successful, the four-year AMARSi (Adaptive Modular Architecture for Rich
Motor Skills) project could see a manufacturing world filled with
autonomous, intelligent humanoid worker bots that can learn new skills
by interacting with their co-workers. Electrical engineer Payman
Arabshahi, who has worked on biologically inspired systems, is quoted.
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April 19, 2010 | New
Scientist
Parlez-vous
robot?
Computer
science graduate student Cynthia Matuszek and her colleagues used the
principles of machine translation to develop a navigation program for
robots. They tested it by sending a robot to explore two buildings on
campus.
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April 13, 2010 | Xconomy
| Detroit
Hold
on to your brightest young people, Michigan
In an
opinion piece in the new Detroit edition of Xconomy, Dean Matt
O'Donnell advises Michigan entrepreneurs to do everything possible to
keep talented young graduates in Michigan.
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April 6, 2010 | Xconomy
Sage
Bionetworks, UW, Fred Hutch secure $15M grants from state life sciences
fund
The
state’s biotech fund picked just three proposals as winners in the most
recent round of grants. A $5 million grant went to a team of ultrasound
researchers at the University of Washington led by Tom Matula, a
researcher at the Applied Physics Laboratory and an affiliate professor
of electrical engineering.
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April 13, 2010 | Tri-City
Herald
Researchers
to develop clean energy courses
Electrical
engineer Mohamed El-Sharkhawi will work with WSU researchers to develop
a program to train engineers in clean energy and the smart electric
power grid. Researchers received $2.5 million from the Department of
Energy to develop the program, one of 54 around the country that is to
receive economic stimulus money set aside for smart grid work force
training projects.
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April 26, 2010 | The
(UW) Daily
Behind the budget
The
first segment in The Daily's five-part series looks at the budget cuts'
effect on academics. Aeronautics and astronautics professor Uy-Loi Ly,
who teaches AA 210, says, "I prefer more labs than lecture, but then,
labs are very time consuming and very intensive in terms of the manpower
to run the lab.”
RELATED
MATERIAL
Proposed 2009-11 UW budget cuts would cost 600-800 jobs | Feb. 9, 2009
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April 28, 2010 | The
Seattle Times
No
Emmert? Science cuts hurt more
The
real news this week came from the UW classrooms, not the boardroom. It
turns out our flagship university, due to budget cuts, is dropping
laboratory experiments from some of its core science courses. One
example is an intro class on the fundamentals of engineering mechanics,
called Aeronautics & Astronautics 210.
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April 13, 2010 | Puget
Sound Business Journal: TechFlash blog
Dog
food, e-forks and other ideas from the First Look Forum
Many
ideas were on display at the Northwest Entrepreneur Network's First Look
Forum, a business plan competition that introduced 12 new startup
companies to the Seattle angel community. The runner-up was Nanocel, a
spinout from mechanical engineer Vipin Kumar's lab working on a new
plastic-based cooling system which reduces the heat produced by laptops,
video game consoles and other electronic devices.
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April 2, 2010 | The
(UW) Daily
Innovative energy
Nineteen
teams from seven different universities in the state — 12 of which were
from the UW — competed for the $10,000 grand prize in the Environmental
Innovation Challenge. Undergraduates in mechanical engineering,
chemical engineering and other departments participated.
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April 13, 2010 | Vashon-Maury
Island Beachcomber
What
exactly is the 'Vashon Hum'?
The
“Vashon Hum” is a very low pure tone that people have heard all across
the Island. It’s not a menacing or terribly annoying sound, Islanders
report, but those who hear it are fascinated by it and wonder where the
hum originates. Mechanical engineer Peter Dahl says the source is likely
land-based.
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April 22, 2010 | OregonLive.com
Studded-tire
devotee: 'I'm not going to slide into a ditch because of your stupid
ways'
An
Oregonian columnist suggested it might be time to ban studded snow tires
in Oregon. Three days later, the comments are still sliding in. In his
blog the reporter cites a 2002 study by Robert Scheibe, a UW affiliate
professor of mechanical engineering, that finds new studless tires are
as good as studded tires in most conditions.
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April 22, 2010 | West
Seattle Blog
University
of Washington students’ research trip to The Mount
Mechanical
engineering students Kim Phasavath, Mark Bae, Thanh Mai, Marcus Lew,
and Joe Grogan visited a West Seattle nursing home to gather information
for their senior project. Their goal is to design a lift to be used in
developing countries that would cost less than half of what our
“developed world” machines cost, without sacrificing safety or
functionality.
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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.
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