ECOMMERCE MASTERS PROGRAM...GSIA has established the "first professional master's degree program in Electronic Commerce". Designed for completion in one year, the program will "educate a new generation of managers, planners, analysts and programmers in the use of the Internet to sell and trade products and services." The curriculum will require 18 courses (9 business/9 technology) taken through both GSIA and SCS. "With an estimated $1 billion being expended by companies, large and medium-sized, to market products on the Internet, this program responds to the increasing demand for more structured training in this area. Among the SCS faculty involved in the program are Jaime Carbonell, Scott Fahlman, Raj Reddy, Bill Scherlis, Michael Shamos, Mary Shaw and Robert Thibadeau. Visit www.ecom.cmu.edu for particulars on courses and application information.

PROPOSALS...
SERGEY BEREZIN, tackles "Combining Model Checking and Theorem Proving in Hardware Verification" at his CS thesis proposal on Wednesday, January 27 at 9:00 am in Wean 4623. His committee includes: Ed Clarke (Chair), Randy Bryant, Todd Mowry, and N. Shankar (SRI International).

IN DEFENSE...
JOHN A. HANCOCK explores "Laser Intensity Based Obstacle Detection and Tracking" at his robotics thesis defense on Tuesday, January 26 at 1:00 pm in Wean 4623. His committee includes: Chuck Thorpe (Chair), Martial Hebert, Eric Krotkov (Cytometrics, Inc), and Edward Riseman (University of Massachusetts).
PATRICK S. ROWE offers "Adaptive Motion Planning for Autonomous Mass Excavation" at his robotics oral on Thursday, January 28 at 10:00 am in Wean 4623. His committee members are: Anthony Stentz (Chair), John Bares, Andrew Moore and Paul Lever (University of Arizona).

THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES...Raymond Kurzweil, founder and Chief Technology Officer, Kurzweil Educational Systems, and founder/CEO of Kurzweil Educational Systems, has been dubbed "a restless genius" (Wall Street Journal), and one of the "undisputed geniuses of our age." He will speak on "The Age of Spiritual Machines" at a special SCS hosted Lecture on Thursday, February 4 at 4:00 pm in Wean Hall 7500. He will take us on a tour of the history of computation and AI and share his predictions for the future of technology. Watch for details on the c/bboards and SCS Calendar of Events.

SCS INVITED TALKS...Dave Touretzky was the inaugural speaker at Georgia Tech's new Cognitive Science Colloquium Series on January 15, where he spoke on "Incremental Learning in Animals and Robots." Dave was hosted in Atlanta by CS alum, and now Assistant Professor, Sven Koenig.

XAVIER MEETS GOVERNOR RIDGE...Greg Armstrong (aka roboman) escorted Xavier to the January 18 Inaugural festivities at the Capitol (PA), held in honor of Governor Tom Ridge. The robot entertained and amazed a group of ~1000 children at a special children's event hosted by the families of the governor and lieutenant governor.

SCS STAR WATCH...Richard Stern was the featured harpsichordist at the Rodef Shalom Concert Series on Monday evening, January 18, where he performed as part of the group, Roy Sonne and the Ionian Chamber Players. Among his concert pieces was the Bach Triple Concerto BWV 1044 for harpsichord, flute, and violin, with Robert Langevin and Linda Lemon as co-soloists. Other works on the program included: the Bach E Major Concerto for Violin, the Beethoven Sonata in C Minor for Violin, and the Poulenc Sonata for Flute and Piano. Tra la!

SCS CAREER PLANNING...
COMPAQ SRC: Mark Lillibridge will offer "A Tour of Research at Compaq's Systems Research Center" at 12:00 noon on Monday, February 1 (Location to be announced.).
MIT LINCOLN LABORATORY: An information session is scheduled for Thursday, February 4 at 6:30 pm in Scaife Hall 422, with interviews on February 5 at the Career Center.
INKTOMI: Adam Beguelin will be visiting on February 11-12. An information session is scheduled for Thursday evening, February 11 AT 6:00 pm in Wean 5409. Contact copetas@cs for details.

PERL OF WISDOM...The Pittsburgh Perl Mongers, a Perl users group, begins bi-weekly meetings on Tuesday, January 26 at 6:30 pm in Wean 7220. The first presentation includes "Perl 5 Modules: An Introduction," by Keith Arner. To learn more about the Perl Mongers, visit http://www.pm.org/, and contact Kevin Lenzo (lenzo@cs) for information about the Pittsburgh branch.

FACULTY MEETINGS...The next CS faculty meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 28 at 4:30 pm in Wean 4623 (Social at 4:00 pm).

GET A LIFE...CMU's School of Music presents Tommy Tune's "A Day in Hollywood, A Night in the Ukraine." The show's director, Niki Harris, is a Pittsburgh native who performed in the show's Broadway debut in 1980. She notes, "The show is filled with mindless entertainment, and the more illogical it gets, the funnier it gets." Take a break from the keyboard! Performances run from February 4-7, at Alumni Concert Hall in the College of Fine Arts building. Reservations: 268-2383

WORDS FOR THOUGHT...
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 27
POP SEMINAR: Mads Tofte, DIKU, University of Copenhagen, "A Polymorphic Type Discipline for Solving Year 2000 Problems in COBOL", 3:30 pm, Wean 8220.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29
SCS STUDENT SEMINAR SERIES: Belinda Thom, "Learning Melodic Pitch Preference in Real-time Interactive Jazz Improvisation", 12:00 pm, Wean 4601.
ROBOTICS SEMINAR: David Kortenkamp, Metrica Inc/TRACLabs, "Adjustable Autonomy Issues in Intelligent Robot Control", 3:30 pm, Adamson Wing.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1
CNBC SEMINAR: Wolfram Schultz, Institute of Physiology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, "Processing of Reward Information in the Primate Brain", 3:30 pm, Langley Hall A224, University of Pittsburgh.

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