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Six Students With SCS Ties Recognized as Siebel Scholars
Aisha Rashid Monday September 19, 2016
The Siebel Scholars Foundation, a program recognizing exceptional students in the world's leading graduate schools of business, computer science, bioengineering and energy science, has named six Carnegie Mellon University graduate students to the 2017 class of Siebel Scholars. Of the 92 distinguished students across the country, Jingkun Gao, Akash Bharadwaj, Kristen Gardner, Timothy Lee, Anqi Li, and Jennifer Olsen, all with ties to the School of Computer Science, represent Carnegie Mellon on the basis of outstanding academic achievement and demonstrated leadership.Jingkun Gao is a fifth-year... Raj Reddy Speaks at Heidelberg Forum
Byron Spice Monday September 19, 2016
Raj Reddy, the Moza Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics, will be among the distinguished researchers speaking this week at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum, Sept. 18–23, in Heidelberg, Germany.Reddy will present his talk, "Too Much Information and Too Little Time," on Thursday, Sept. 22. Talks are being streamed live and are available later for playback.Building on the successful model of the annual Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates, the Heidelberg Laureate Forum brings together students and early-career researchers with winners of the Turing Award and Nevanlinna... Object-Detecting Technology Wins Fast Company Award
Byron Spice Thursday September 15, 2016
EM-Sense, a technology developed by Carnegie Mellon University and Disney Research for automatically identifying an electrical or electromagnetic device that a person is touching, is the student category winner of Fast Company magazine's prestigious Innovation by Design Awards.The technology was invented by a team that included Gierad Laput and Robert Xiao, both Ph.D. students in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. Other team members are Chris Harrison, assistant professor in the HCII; and Alanson Sample and Chouchang Yang of Disney Research.EM-Sense could enable smartwatches to... Predicting a Future Where the Future Is Routinely Predicted
Byron Spice Wednesday September 14, 2016
Artificial intelligence systems will be able to give managers real-time insights about their business operations, as well as detect early warnings of problems before they occur, writes SCS Dean Andrew Moore in an essay commissioned by Sloan MIT Management Review.Moore was one of 14 thought leaders invited by the management journal to inaugurate its new Frontiers section, which will explore how technology is reshaping management.In the essay, Moore explains how AI will be able to recognize anomalies — not just in business data, but in how employees are behaving — that can provide managers with... Women Are Almost Half of Carnegie Mellon's Incoming Computer Science Undergraduates
Byron Spice Monday September 12, 2016
Women make up more than 48 percent of incoming first-year undergraduates this fall in Carnegie Mellon University's top-ranked School of Computer Science (SCS), setting a new school benchmark for diversity.SCS has long been a national leader in increasing the participation of women in computer science, a discipline in which women have been significantly underrepresented nationwide.A 38 percent increase in the number of women who applied for admission with SCS as their first choice contributed to this year's record enrollment, said Guy Blelloch, associate dean for undergraduate programs."Even... CMU Algorithm Detects Online Fraudsters
Byron Spice Thursday September 08, 2016
An algorithm developed at Carnegie Mellon University makes it easier to determine if someone has faked an Amazon or Yelp review, or if a politician with a suspiciously large number of Twitter followers might have bought and paid for that popularity.The method, called FRAUDAR, marks the latest escalation in the cat-and-mouse game played by online fraudsters and the social media platforms that try to out them. In particular, the new algorithm makes it possible to see through camouflage that fraudsters use to make themselves look legitimate, said Christos Faloutsos, professor of machine learning... Friends Help Friends on Facebook Feel Better
Byron Spice Tuesday September 06, 2016
Personal interactions on Facebook can have a major impact on a person's feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby, a new study by Carnegie Mellon University and Facebook researchers shows.But not just any interaction has these positive effects. Passively reading posts or one-click feedback such as "likes" don't move the needle. What really makes people feel good is when those they know and care about write personalized posts or comments."We're not talking about anything that's particularly labor-intensive," said Moira Burke, a research... SpeckSensor Air Quality App Tracks Annual "Dirty Days"
Byron Spice Friday September 02, 2016
A new feature for the SpeckSensor app enables users to see the number of "dirty days," when air quality has been unhealthy in a locale over the past year, and to compare that number with other cities across the nation.The app, developed by the CREATE Lab of Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute and Airviz spinoff, was launched last year. It allows users to get up-to-date Air Quality Index (AQI) numbers for their current location and for other locales of their choosing, enabling them to quickly see not only if the air they are breathing is healthy, but also how healthy it is relative...