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, July 2011
July 21, 2011 | IEEE Spectrum: TechTalk blog
A new NSF-funded center will integrate diverse brain computer interface techniques
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The University of Washington has announced that it will receive five years of funding—$18.5 million in total—from the National Science Foundation to establish a new center for neural engineering on the Seattle campus. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
July 14, 2011 | seattlepi.com
UW gets grant for developing mind-controlled robotic limbs
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A newly established research center at the University of Washington could bring "The Six Million Dollar Man" closer to reality. The National Science Foundation on Thursday awarded a five-year, $18.5 million grant to establish the new Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering, based at UW in Seattle. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
July 14, 2011 | Puget Sound Business Journal: TechFlash blog
UW taps grant to allow mind to interface with machine
| The University of Washington will become the home of a research center that will work with MIT, Microsoft and others on research that could lead to robotic hands or limbs that are controlled by the human brain. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
July 14, 2011 | GeekWire
Mind meets machine: $18.5M grant for new UW center to meld humans, devices
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An $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a new Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering on the University of Washington campus — a place where researchers will figure out new ways for the human nervous system to work in conjunction with robotics and other mechanical devices. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
July 14, 2011 | Slashdot
NSF funds mind-machine interface center
| The National Science Foundation today announced an $18.5 million grant to establish an Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering based at the University of Washington. |
UW will lead $18.5 million effort to create mind-machine interface
July 18, 2011 | Technology Review
A heart pump without a cord
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A new wireless power scheme, developed by electrical engineer and computer scientist Joshua Smith, could make implanted devices more comfortable and reduce the risk of infection. |
Wireless power could cut cord for patients with implanted heart pumps
July 14, 2011 | Gizmag
Wireless power for heart implants could reduce infections, increase mobility
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Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are attempting to put an end to the troublesome power cords by developing a system that wirelessly transmits power to heart pumps. |
Wireless power could cut cord for patients with implanted heart pumps
July 18, 2011 | MSNBC (via InnovationNewsDaily)
Artificial heart goes wireless — and gets safer
| Joshua Smith, an associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering at the University of Washington, and Dr. Pramod Bonde, a heart surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, have designed a wireless heart power device. |
Wireless power could cut cord for patients with implanted heart pumps
July 14, 2011 | National Public Radio
What it means to be 'always on' a smartphone
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Constant access to hundreds of thousands of applications has far-reaching implications, says author Brian Chen. In the medical world, electrical engineer Babak Parviz's initial steps to create a digital contact lens that would monitor vital signs in real time could provide instantaneous feedback to physicians through wireless radio connections. |
Contact lenses with circuits, lights a possible platform for superhuman vision
July 15, 2011 | LiveScience.com
Carmageddon: Will massive project fix LA's traffic nightmare?
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LA traffic was predicted to come to an absolute standstill when the I-405 freeway closed. A blogger looks at what causes the massive traffic mess that makes the 405 the third worst bottleneck in the country, and whether the weekend of pain will likely result in any gain. Civil engineer Mark Hallenbeck is quoted. |
July 16, 2011 | Puget Sound Business Journal: TechFlash blog
How Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Kinect help surgeons in the OR
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The sight of a surgeon playing "Grand Theft Auto" in the operating room might raise eyebrows, but it's one example of how consumer technology is being repurposed to advance the practice of medicine. An article on UW projects combining medicine and virtual reality quotes electrical engineer Howard Chizeck of the UW's Biorobotics Lab. |
Engineering students hack Kinect for surgical robotics research
July 01, 2011 | Car and Driver
Hack to the future: Can your car be hacked?
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A feature article in Car and Driver reports on research from the Center for Automotive Embedded Systems Security, which is directed by UW computer scientist Yoshi Kohno and colleagues at UC San Diego. |
Media alert: Presentation on the security of modern automobiles
July 18, 2011 | GeekWire
UW researcher Shwetak Patel chosen as Microsoft Research Faculty fellow
| Microsoft Research has selected Shwetak Patel — an assistant professor in the departments of computer science & engineering and electrical engineering at the UW — as one of eight new faculty fellows. |
Home's electrical wiring acts as antenna to receive low-power sensor data
July 23, 2011 | KIRO Radio (via GeekWire)
GeekWire Radio: Apple, Zillow, and the amazing things your home wiring can do
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The studio guest for GeekWire's weekly podcast is Shwetak Patel, a UW assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering, who has figured out how to use voltage noise on home electrical systems to monitor the energy usage of specific appliances and devices, and also how to use home wiring as an antenna to receive signals from sensors around the home. |
Home's electrical wiring acts as antenna to receive low-power sensor data
July 20, 2011 | PC World (via IDG News)
Android phones help poor farmers in Uganda
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A project developed by the Seattle-based Grameen Foundation Technology Center offers select farmers loans to buy an Android phone loaded with information about when and how to plant crops, care for farm animals and find markets for products. The phones use data collection software developed by computer scientists at the UW. |
Cell phones become handheld tools for global development
July 21, 2011 | Women in Academia Report
Study finds that retention programs aimed at women in engineering may be more effective when race is considered
| Programs to increase the number of women in science and engineering programs have become commonplace across the nation. But a new study conducted by researchers at the UW’s Center for Workforce Development finds that recruiting and retention programs aimed at women may be more effective when race is factored into the effort. |
Race matters when recruiting, retaining undergraduate women engineers
July 26, 2011 | The Chicago Tribune
Opinion: Internet killed Borders, but it won't kill books
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A columnist writes that books are here to stay, because reading on paper is fundamentally different — and, he thinks, superior — to reading in an electronic format. Alex Thayer, a doctoral student in human-centered design and engineering who studied Kindle use among academics, is quoted. |
College students’ use of Kindle DX points to e-reader’s role in academia
July 18, 2011 | CNET: Crave blog
Amazon lets students rent Kindle textbooks
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Amazon today unveiled a textbook rental service for the company's Kindle e-reader. E-readers like Kindle provide good airplane and beach reading experiences, but they need some improvement to satisfactorily handle textbook reading, at least according to a study by human centered design and engineering's Charlotte Lee. |
College students’ use of Kindle DX points to e-reader’s role in academia
July 05, 2011 | SmartPlanet
E-books may inhibit student comprehension: studies
| E-books may be the wave of the future, but it seems members of Generation Y — you know, the digital generation — still prefer their books in print, and find some aspects of e-reading to be clunky. |
College students’ use of Kindle DX points to e-reader’s role in academia
July 20, 2011 | The Seattle Times
UW president likes 'innovation' zone for U District
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President Michael Young is talking up the idea of an "innovation district" within Seattle's U District that would nurture new businesses and provide "dramatically mixed-use" areas for living and working. Young said it's important for universities to commercialize so inventions can make it out of the research lab and into the marketplace. |
July 27, 2011 | The New York Times
Colleges join plan for faster computer networks
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A coalition of 29 U.S. universities is planning to build ultra-high-speed computer networks — with Internet service several hundred times faster than what is now commercially available — in the communities surrounding the participating colleges. The UW is among the participating schools. |
July 25, 2011 | The (Everett) Herald
Program gives head start to high-achieving students with disabilities
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The Everett Herald profiles Vaughn Zormeir, a junior at Glacier Peak High School and a participant in this year's DO-IT program. |
Technology summer camp welcomes disabled high-school students
July 13, 2011 | Sequim Gazette
Grad's dream taking flight
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Aeronautics and astronautics master's graduate Hans Boenish, a valedictorian in the 2004 class of Sequim High School, worked at the UW's Kirsten Wind Tunnel and hopes to pursue a career in aerospace engineering. But first he'll visit the Caribbean, South America and southeast Africa on a Bonderman Travel Fellowship. |