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Georgia Tech in the News
IndieCade Announces Game Finalists for 2010 Festival
9/7/10 – A Slow Year (Ian Bogost, USA): A Slow Year is a collection of four game “poems” for the Atari Video Computer System, one for each season, about the experience of observation and awareness. A Slow Year stakes out a deep and interesting design problem, searching for engaging and meaningful interactivity outside the traditional reaches of modern gameplay and typical genre design. Ian Bogot is a professor at Georgia Tech, and co-founder of Persuasive Games, creator of Airport Insecurity and a series of news games for the New York Times. Ian is also co-creator of IndieCade featured Cruel2BKind. A Slow Year was featured in the 2010’s Independent Game Festival (IGF) at the Game Developers Conference.
Shimon and the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology Participate in Bumbershoot Fest
9/2/10 – AV geeks will undoubtedly gather here to see Shimon “The Improvising Robotic Musician” play music from behind a keyboard. Designed by Gil Weinberg, Guy Hoffman, and Ryan Nikolaidis of Georgia Tech, and Roberto Aimi of Alium Labs, Shimon is more of a mechanical arm than a humanoid surrogate. He (it?) is perched on a low stage in the middle of the exhibition space. To his left is another keyboard and space for live, human sidemen; according to the Bumbershoot blog, Shimon can “hear” and respond to musical cues, like a regular jazz musician. We’ll see.
Jason Freeman from Georgia Tech Brings Punk Rock’s Boundary-Busting Ideas to Classical Music
9/2/10 – Jason Freeman is a punk for geeks. With his conservative haircut and advanced degrees in composition, he’s bringing many of the same boundary-busting ideas to classical music that punk musicians brought to rock. For Freeman, there’s no reason regular folks shouldn’t be able to participate in making “art music,” and his music projects over the last decade have been devoted to figuring out ways to do exactly that. Freeman’s an assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Music and he uses technology to sweep away the boundaries between composers and audiences. One of his most widely known projects to date is “Piano Etudes,” music for piano enabled by the Web’s open-ended community of tinkerers. “Piano Etudes,” commissioned by pianist Jenny Lin, consists of a series of musical fragments that can be rearranged on the fly by the performer. But anyone can have a hand in the mix by going to the accompanying website and clicking on the various music fragments to create new compositions. Some visitor-created pieces have even been selected and performed in concert.
New Research Applies Computing to Detecting Autism
9/1/10 – A team of researchers in eight universities has just won a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation to create new computing techniques for measuring and analyzing the behavior of children. The goal is to create new ways to identify those at risk for autism and other developmental delays. The team, led by the Georgia Institute of Technology, also includes scientists from Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, Emory University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Southern California, as well as collaborators from several autism research centers.
President Peterson Discusses the Georgia Tech Strategic Plan, and FutureMedia
8/30/10 – Georgia Tech students may learn in virtual classrooms, with avatars of themselves “sitting” in the class. Students and professors will work to solve the world’s problems using new areas of study. The institute will expand globally, while also taking on a larger role in Atlanta. These are just a few aspects of the strategic vision Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson will share in a speech Tuesday. The plan outlines goals and priorities to shape the institution for the next 25 years.
Nobel Prize Winner Yunus Visits Atlanta in Quest To Build Social Business
8/29/10 – Atlanta has been a special draw for Yunus. He’s having discussions with Emory University on health care issues. He visited with CNN. He was in Atlanta as part of a tour promoting his latest book: “Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs.” He believes Atlanta can become a center for social businesses within universities and in local communities. Yunus has many friends and colleagues in Atlanta. There is fellow Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jimmy Carter.
8/27/10 – One of the key attractions of retrogaming may lie in its limitations. Modern consoles and games are lightning-fast and have virtually no restrictions on storage. That’s led to “a lot of poorly developed games,” Alexander said. The restrictions older-style games impose on image and sound quality force developers to put more thought into what goes in – and what’s left out. “You have to boil it down to find the essence if you will,” said Ian Bogost, a Georgia Tech videogame researcher who teaches a class called “Atari Hacks, Remakes, and Demakes.” In a way, retrogaming is to videogames as minimalism is to art: both revolve around a focus on the fundamentals.
Tweens and Technology: The Tiny Power Shoppers
8/27/10 – Sarita Yardi, of the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, says her research shows that kids are adopting technology faster than ever before, “asking for phones and access to online sites at much younger ages.” The dollars from the demographic are beginning to flow, not just for the games and devices, but parents are even paying companies to monitor their children’s mobile usage, she adds.
Georgia Tech, Others Get $10M Federal Autism Grant
8/25/10 – Georgia Tech and other colleges have received a $10 million federal grant to develop a computer system that can screen young children for developmental disorders like autism. The National Science Foundation award will go to researchers collecting behavioral data from children to help develop an automated system of analysis and identification. The computer-based system will help increase the number of children who can be screened and get them the critical treatments they need earlier in life.
Despite Challenges, Atlanta Seeing More Entrepreneurs Than Ever
8/24/10 – The economic downturn hit Atlanta as hard as anywhere in the country, says Stephen Fleming, vice provost, Economic Development and Technology Ventures, and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech. Fleming has a diverse and relevant background to be helping Georgia Tech stimulate and nurture Atlanta startups. He has more than 14 years as a general partner in private equity and is currently a member of the Seraph Group‘s investment committee. Seraph invests in early stage firms.
Nick Feamster from Georiga Tech Named on Technology Review’s Top Young Innovators
8/24/10 – For years, e-mail providers, IT departments, and network operators have fought spam with the help of technology that examines what messages say. Nick Feamster, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, had a better idea. Instead of examining content, he looks at how messages move through networks, on the theory that the traffic flow of legitimate messages and spam should be different. For example, Feamster found that spammers often try to hide in “dark space”–normally unconnected Internet addresses. Suddenly, a previously unreachable block of addresses would light up, send out a bunch of messages, and then disappear. Watching for phantom networks that appear for 10 minutes at a time turned out to be one way to identify and stop spam. His strategies have been adopted by companies such as Yahoo and McAfee in their ongoing struggle to prevent spam from reaching users.
Easy and Safe: The Next Frontier in Cyber Security
8/24/10 - 17,134 years.That’s how long experts from the Georgia Institute of Technology say it would take a hacker to decode your computer password if you adopted one with at least 12 characters. Your current one that uses just five or six letters? Thanks to new technology, a properly trained and equipped crook could unravel your computer password in less time that it takes to eat lunch and make a quick stop at the dry cleaners. In particular, experts at the institute have been studying new and advanced Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) chips, which, for a few hundred dollars, provide the processing power of technology that cost tens of millions of dollars only a decade ago. The arrival of these new chips, which hackers can put to use to decode security passwords, is significantly altering the security landscape, they believe.
Researchers Developing Computerized Tool for Autism Diagnosis, Care
8/23/10 - Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have begun developing a computerized early warning system that could be used diagnose children with autism, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Georgia Tech is part of a consortium of universities that won a five-year, $10 million National Science Foundation grant to develop digital tools that can be widely distributed and that require little training to operate.
NVIDIA Names Georgia Institute of Technology a CUDA Center of Excellence
8/23/10 – One of the world’s premier engineering and science universities, Georgia Tech is engaged in a wide number of research, development and educational activities which leverage GPU Computing. Jeffrey Vetter, joint professor of the Georgia Tech College of Computing and Group Leader at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will serve as principal investigator of the CUDA Center of Excellence. “Georgia Tech has a long history of education and research that depends heavily on the parallel processing capabilities that NVIDIA has introduced with its CUDA architecture,” Vetter said. “This award allows us to focus, what is now a large amount of activity across 25 different research groups, under a single center, which will significantly amplify our research capabilities.”
Georgia Tech Hopes to Develop Early Warning Tools and Treatments for Autism
8/20/10 – Researchers at Georgia Tech hope to create an inexpensive, computerized early warning system for young children who have autism. The socially-isolating affliction is frightening for parents, but it can be treated. And that treatment can be more effective with early intervention, project members said. Children, on average, are not screened by an autism expert until age 4, but the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that all infants be screened at 18 months of age. “The problem is,” said Gregory Abowd, a computer professor at Tech and one of the team leaders, “we don’t have any way to effectively do that across the entire population.”
Flawed Proof Ushers in Era of Wikimath
8/20/10 – His prospects of answering one of the biggest questions in mathematics may be fading, but Vinay Deolalikar of Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto, California, may still have made his mark. His proposed proof of the “P versus NP” problem led to a flurry of online activity that points to a new way of doing mathematics – via blogs and wikis. “It was at least the catalyst for some very interesting discussion and developments,” says Terence Tao at the University of California, Los Angeles, one of several computer scientists and mathematicians who have raced to make sense of the proof since it exploded onto the web last week. Much of this activity took place on the blog of Richard Lipton, a computer scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. A wiki was also set up to gather opinions on the proof, which if true sets limits on what computers can do, with implications for cryptography.
FutureMedia Fest to Sponsor Startup Drinks on September 7th
8/15/10 – The September event is shaping up to be a great time. Which is fitting, since it the first anniversary of my becoming your beloved host! First, we’re going to a great joint, Ormsby’s (about which more later). Second, we’ve got a sponsor: Georgia Tech’s FutureMedia Fest!
Georgia Tech Featured in US News & World Report’s Best Colleges List
8/16/10 – An electronic glove that helps an accident victim regain movement in his hand while at the same time teaching him how to play the piano; a virtual space where coworkers across oceans can feel like they’re sitting in the same room; a robotic limb that through stem cell technology can be integrated directly with a veteran’s war-damaged nerves and tissues. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, undergraduate students have a hands-on role in making these innovative concepts a reality. Though its College of Liberal Arts and College of Management are expanding their programs, there’s no denying that Georgia Tech is a school built with engineering and science in mind. Step away from the old campus’s red brick buildings and you’ll see state-of-the-art research facilities, such as the year-old Marcus Nanotechnology Building, the first of its kind to house nanoelectronics in the same structure as a biotechnology clean room, facilitating interdisciplinary research. Elsewhere on the 400-acre campus are a full garage for mechanical engineers to build and tune up racecars and entire lab rooms devoted to developing video games and augmented-reality applications, not to mention plentiful labs where chemists and chemical engineers can conduct experiments.
Do ‘FarmVille Spoofs Mean We’re Sick of Social Games?
8/17/10 – “There’s a general feeling of discomfort and bafflement with all of the FarmWhatever and MobsterBoss notifications you see on Facebook and other social networks,” said Persuasive Games founder Ian Bogost. “It’s become almost absurdist.” Witness Bogost’s new social gaming spoof, “Cow Clicker,” a Facebook game in which you click on cows to earn the right to click on more cows. It’s a form of biting interactive satire. “Any cultural force that we don’t grasp but that seems to overtake us becomes ripe for parody,” Bogost added. “I created ‘Cow Clicker’ in part to give myself and others a second look at ‘FarmVille’ and its ilk and force social-network games players to ask themselves what these [titles] are and why they’re so compelling.”
New ATDC Director Says Broadening Its Mission Statewide is a Priority
8/13/10 – Nina Sawczuk, 48, formerly assistant director of the Advanced Technology Development Center in Atlanta who took the helm this month as ATDC manager and director of Startup Services, says extending its programs beyond core suite members is a priority. ATDC provides space, mentoring, and contacts for Atlanta startups. Nearly a year ago, ATDC opened its doors to a greater number of companies as it merged with the Georgia Tech VentureLab program and the state SBIR assistance program. It also manages the Georgia Tech Edison Fund. Currently, Sawczuk tells us, ATDC includes more than 300 firms, about 20 to 30 resident in its seed or suite space offices.
Call to Improve Password Security
8/13/10 – A team led by Richard Boyd from the Georgia Tech Research Institute has been investigating what effect the number-crunching power of modern graphics cards could have on the crackability of passwords. Many graphics cards employ hundreds of so-called stream processors working in parallel to render images. Many scientists now use the basic arithmetical properties of these processors to help crunch through data generated during experiments. The number crunching abilities of graphics cards are now comparable to the multi-million dollar supercomputers built about a decade ago, said Mr Boyd. The parallel processing systems inside graphics cards are very good at carrying out so-called “brute force” attacks that effectively try every possible combination of letters and numbers until the right one is found. Longer passwords take longer to crack and offer better protection, say the researchers. “Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate,” said Mr Boyd, “and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase.”
GTRI Researchers Invited to Robotics Rodeo
8/10/10 – The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command extended an invitation to Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) researchers to demonstrate their unmanned systems technologies at the Robotics Rodeo 2010. Scheduled for October 12-15 at Fort Benning, the Rodeo provides a venue for participants to present the latest in autonomous unmanned systems to the Army user and research and development communities. Utilizing an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the GTRI team will showcase the collaborative interoperability of separate, but interacting autonomous systems.
Hiding Files in Flickr Pics Will Fool Web Censors
8/9/10 – Collage is able to identify which images have been used to hide material. All the would-be reader has to do is click on the date they are interested in; the stories appear a few minutes later. “It all happens in the background,” says Sam Burnett at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, part of the team behind Collage. Burnett has designed a Flickr upload tool that links with Collage and embeds content that publishers or activists want to make available. Collage can also be easily extended so that stories are embedded in other photo-sharing sites. The idea is to spread material across numerous sites that host user-generated content so that the activity of someone running Collage appears much like that of any internet user and the censors cannot just block access to Flickr. Collage does, however, rely on the goodwill of Flickr users, who will have to provide access to the images where the articles are to be hidden.
DARPA ‘Exascale’ Supercomputer In the Works
8/9/10 – To answer this challenge, DARPA’s goal is to develop high-performance computers that use a lot less energy per computation. “The goal of DARPA’s UHPC program is to reinvent computing. It plans to develop radically new computer architectures and programming models that are 100 to 1,000 times more energy efficient, with higher performance, and that are easier to program than current systems,” according to the agency. The four companies and organizations selected to develop UHPC prototype systems are Intel, Nvidia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratory. Georgia Institute of Technology was selected to lead an Applications, Benchmarks and Metrics team for evaluating the UHPC systems under development, DARPA said.
8/9/10 – The answer is probably not — at least an unprovoked attack — based on extensive new legal research appearing in an upcoming issue of the British journal INFO. The research describes a 150-year-old series of Geneva Conventions relating to cyberwar. However, a precise answer to the question is impossible because no one has actually defined the term “cyberwar” and reaching broad agreement on a definition seems problematic at best.
Jason Freeman New York Times Online Composer Invites Readers to Remix His Compositions
8/7/10 – He writes a column called ‘The Score’ and has invited readers to compose their own music based on some fragments called Piano Etudes which Jason has written and made available at his website for people to remix and share.
Malware Threat Outpaces Antivirus Software
8/3/10 – For the last 20 years, hackers and antivirus software programmers have played a cat-and-mouse game over computer security. Whenever one side would innovate, the other would catch up. And for most of that time, the conflict remained a benign contest between tech savvy vandals looking for street cred and the professional programmers trained to counter them. But around late 2005/early 2006, malware production transformed from a hobby of malevolent computer geeks into a major source of money for organized crime. Funded by mobsters to steal credit card information or propagate Internet scams, virus writers began churning out malware at a rate, and of a complexity, orders of magnitude larger than antivirus software could deal with. Recently, antivirus software companies have responded with new technologies to counter the enhanced threat, but some experts believe even that may be too little, too late.
8/3/10 – In a laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers gaze intently into a line of large flat-screen monitors. Using hand-held devices and famous-name gaming software, they guide on-screen vehicles through winding streets and around or over obstacles. Groans can be heard when a vehicle doesn’t make the grade. No, it’s not break time in the lab. The gaming activity here is serious, aimed at investigating ways in which a robot might move through complex environments. Its ultimate purpose is to provide the U.S. military and other government agencies with tiny autonomous devices that could carry out combat or disaster-relief missions.
8/3/10 – It’s been called revolutionary – technology that lends supercomputer-level power to any desktop. What’s more, this new capability comes in the form of a readily available piece of hardware, a graphics processing unit (GPU) costing only a few hundred dollars. Georgia Tech researchers are investigating whether this new calculating power might change the security landscape worldwide. They’re concerned that these desktop marvels might soon compromise a critical part of the world’s cyber-security infrastructure – password protection. “We’ve been using a commonly available graphics processor to test the integrity of typical passwords of the kind in use here at Georgia Tech and many other places,” said Richard Boyd, a senior research scientist at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). “Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate – and as GPU power continues to go up every year, the threat will increase.”
Participate in the FutureMedia Outlook Survey
8/2/10 – Digital Media Citizens! Be a part of the future and participate in the FutureMedia survey! Give us your perspective on how future content might transform the way we work, play, live, and learn in 5-7 years!
Open-Source: Military Adoption of Open-Source Software May Increase Flexibility and Lower Cost
8/2/10 – Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are helping the U.S. military analyze and develop the advantages of open-source software – programs that make their source code open to others so it can be changed and improved. Bringing many minds to bear on a given program can lead to software that is both high quality and low cost, or even free. For example, the Linux operating system, which licenses its basic source code for free, is now used to run many servers in companies, government and academia. The U.S. military is interested in open source, too, because it offers the potential for increased speed and flexibility, among other advantages. Scientists and engineers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) are working with military agencies to maximize the open-source potential.
Technologies Help Adult Children Monitor Aging Parents
7/29/10 – Several academic studies have been undertaken to see just where the line between loving watchfulness and over-intrusion might be drawn. Researchers at Georgia Tech have created an experimental house (called the Aware Home) outfitted with various sensors and motion detectors as well as systems that provide support for medication and memory. They brought in older adults to see how they felt about the devices. “They were quite positive about the idea,” said Ms. Rogers, who is a director of the university’s Human Factors and Aging Laboratory. But the key, she said, is control. The older person is much more amenable if he or she “can control who has access to the information and what information they have access to,” she said.
ViaCycle: Bike Sharing in a Tech-Enabled Box
7/29/10 – ViaCycle, a startup spun out of the Georgia Institute of Technology, aims to take the idea of bike-on-demand networks, strip out the pricey infrastructure, amp up the location-based services, and deliver a system that will let universities and municipalities implement bike sharing programs with more flexibility and lower cost. The company, a semifinalist in this year’s California Cleantech Open, has developed a system that uses wireless communication networks, GPS and text messaging to track bikes within the network, allow administrators to set boundaries on the usage area, and provide services like calorie counting based on distance traveled. Rather than requiring specialized bike racks that unlock with the swipe of a smart card or kiosks for payment (as in many bike sharing programs around the world), users can lock or unlock a bike by sending a text message with their user ID and the tag for the bike.
Video Profile on Glitch Game Testing Program
7/28/10 – Video profile of the Glitch game testing program, which introduces young African-American males to computer science via testing video games for companies like Electronic Arts, Turner and more.
A Study Launched to Analyze Whether Tweets Are All Noise
7/27/10 – Responding to the widespread perception that the majority of Twitter updates are boring, inane, or largely sandwich-related, researchers from the University of Southampton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Georgia Institute of Technology are calling for tweeters (Twitter users) to anonymously rate their friends’ tweets. The study aims at exploring the question- “Who gives a tweet?” According to the researchers, people often reach for the microblogging website when they have just had a great breakfast, updated their blog, feel exhausted, or want to share a news article.
How Playing Video Games Can Boost Your Career
7/27/10 – A book published in April called “Your Career Game” discusses how online Xbox games like “Modern Warfare 2″ can teach players about game theory. The strategies gamers learn in interacting and competing with others in games, assessing different motivations and finding and utilizing mentors can help employees get ahead in the workplace or help job-seekers get an edge in their search. The book was co-authored by Nathan Bennett, a management professor at Georgia Tech, and Stephen Miles, vice chairman of executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.
The Double-Slide Music Controller
7/24/10 – The Double Slide Controller, winner of the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition – Developed by composer and researcher Tomás Henriques, the instrument mixes computer music software, sensor technologies and flexible hand/arm gestures to generate rich, complex sounds. Certainly takes the traditional trombone format well into the digital domain!
Songtweak: What Really Turns a Listener On…
7/23/10 – Lots of financial resources have been poured into recommendation startups, though this is still a riddle for entrepreneurs. Pandora has successfully approached the space with human reviewers and smaller artist lists, though a more brainier mindset continues. The latest comes from Songtweak, which is bubbling out of Georgia Tech’s College of Computing. The idea, at a top-level, is to identify portions of songs that listeners love the most, and use that intelligence to deliver tighter recommendations. “Our platform was built on the observation that it’s quite common for two people to like a song for different reasons,” cofounder Mike Genovese told Digital Music News.
Ian Bogost Reveals New Game ‘Cow Clicker’
7/21/10 – I made a Facebook game about Facebook games, called Cow Clicker. You can go play it on Facebook now, or you can see some screenshots on on this site. Here’s the short description, from the page just linked: Cow Clicker is a Facebook game about Facebook games. It’s partly a satire, and partly a playable theory of today’s social games, and partly an earnest example of that genre. You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again. Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom “premium” cows through micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called “mooney”), and you can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it. You can publish feed stories about clicking your cow, and you can click friends’ cow clicks in their feed stories. Cow Clicker is Facebook games distilled to their essence.
7/21/10 – Tech business incubator, ATDC, has a new chief — one with entrepreneurial and biotech roots. Nina Sawczuk will take over as director of Startup Services and general manager of the Advanced Technology Development Center in August. Sawczuk was picked for the top job because she is “the complete package,” said Stephen Fleming, vice provost at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute. Sawczuk is good at managing people, an accomplished communicator, and has startup and big-company experience, Fleming said.
Clothes To Help You Build Muscle
7/20/10 – Patrick Whaley was so skinny as a child that he would put extra books in his book bag to build up more muscle. Later on he realized that instead of carrying weight in a bag, he could carry it in his clothes. He figured this would help bulk him up, so he then invented Omega Wear. This is a clothing line that incorporates hydro-gel weights, which are purposefully placed over major muscle groups. The clothing is designed to help raise the number of calories you burn throughout the day and improve muscle endurance. Whaley’s invention won him the $20,000 first prize award at an invention contest held by the Georgia Institute of Technology where he was an engineering student. He received a free U.S. patent as well. He said, “As soon as I was able to get into my shirt and use my own shirt for my workouts, that was one of the proudest days of my life.”
Has The Robot’s Day Finally Arrived?
7/18/10 – Andrea Thomaz, assistant professor in the Interactive Computing Dept. at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was at the conference demonstrating Simon, a human-like robot with a gentle, rounded, likeable face and eyes that will turn to you. Simon was moving blocks of various colors, sizes and shapes to demonstrate its learning capabilities. Simon’s hardware was built by Meka Robotics LLC in San Francisco. The face was designed by Georgia Tech. Thomaz directs the university’s Socially Intelligent Machines Lab , which combines researchers who are from computer science, electrical engineering, and sometimes psychology students, interested in the human interaction side of robotics. The lab focuses is on real world problems, including developing robots that can interact with humans which can involve learning from them, said Thomaz. She believes the robotics industry is “going to be huge,” and students are motivated, in part, by the idea that they might have a lifetime career in robotics.
President Peterson Appointed to National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
7/16/10 - U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke has named Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson to the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship this week. The group will develop policies that foster entrepreneurship and identifying new ways to take great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to drive economic growth and create jobs. Secretary Locke hosted an innovation forum on July 15 at the Georgia Tech’s Global Learning Center along with the Commerce Department’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Economic Development Administration. The forum engaged university leaders and key stakeholders in discussion on the role of universities in innovation, economic development, job creation and commercialization of federally funded research
7/14/10 – Making music used to be something everybody did, and will likely do again in the future according to Parag Chordia, Director of the Music Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech. Parag Chordia: Music has been something that is a cross-culture phenomenon. It’s something that’s deeply embedded in our psyche. And it’s something that used to be participatory. You know, music used to be a ritualistic thing, a work-related thing, something that helped you pass the time or coordinate your activities or just entertain yourself. And it was something that…it wasn’t the sense that I can’t dance or I can’t sing…it was something that everyone did and everyone can do.
7/13/10 – But building a product based on augmented reality requires video cameras, fast microprocessors and sensors that can relay location. Until recently, these needs have made AR too bulky, expensive and slow to be commercially practical. “Because most of the compelling uses of augmented reality are mobile, you need small devices,” says Blair MacIntyre, director of the Augmented Environments Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “You are so focused on some things that you completely miss other important things,” says Mr. MacIntyre, of Georgia Tech. “There are worries about people stepping off curbs or falling down stairs.”
Software Uses Twitter, Flickr to Let Dissidents Send Secret Messages
7/12/10 – In an attempt to make it easier for dissidents in countries such as China and North Korea to communicate without fear of government sanctions, researchers at Georgia Tech have developed software that can hide information inside messages posted to Twitter and other social networks, as well as in images that can be uploaded to photo-sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa. The researchers plan to unveil the program — known as Collage — and a related research paper at the Usenix security conference next month.
The Ongoing War Against Cybercrime
7/11/10 – In March, a portable media device with personal data for more than 3 million people was stolen from Minnesota-based Educational Credit Management Corp. It is believed to be the largest breach of its kind. The thieves who stole the USB drive, like in other cases, may not commit identity thefts themselves, according to Jonathon Giffin, a system and software security researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “They may sell the information to others who have the knowledge of making money from those identities,” Giffin said. Most credit card companies and banks offer some recourse if a customer becomes the victim of internet fraud. But when personal information is lost because a company is the victim of crime, it is often unclear who is ultimately responsible.
Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr. Robot
7/10/10 – On a recent Monday afternoon, Crystal Chao, a graduate student in robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, was teaching a five-foot robot named Simon to put away toys. She had given some instructions — the flower goes in the red bin, the block in the blue bin — and Simon had correctly put away several of these objects. But now the robot was stumped, its doughboy head tipped forward, its fawn eyes blinking at a green toy water sprinkler. Dr. Chao repeated her query, perhaps the most fundamental in all of education: Do you have any questions? “Let me see,” said Simon, in a childlike machine voice, reaching to pick up the sprinkler. “Can you tell me where this goes?” “In the green bin,” came the answer. Simon nodded, dropping it in that bin. “Makes sense,” the robot said. In addition to tracking motion and recognizing language, Simon accumulates knowledge through experience. Just as humans can learn from machines, machines can learn from humans, said Andrea Thomaz, an assistant professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech who directs the project. For instance, she said, scientists could equip a machine to understand the nonverbal cues that signal “I’m confused” or “I have a question” — giving it some ability to monitor how its lesson is being received.
An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself
7/9/10 – Along with my boyfriend (now my husband), Parag Chordia, I raised money through family and friends and started my own technology company, a social networking site that grew to two million users. And I have never looked back — even though that company has not been profitable. Last year, Parag and I started Khush Inc., which makes an iPhone music application called LaDiDa. It’s a kind of reverse karaoke — it creates background music when people sing lyrics into a microphone, and it is one of the top 20 paid music applications in iTunes. As chief executive of my own start-up, I now spend my days building consumer products from the ground up, creating grass-roots marketing campaigns, pitching my ideas to investors and dreaming about the next big thing. How many people bought my product? Who saw my video? What can I do to reach more people tomorrow? These are the questions I ask myself each day.
Researches Tout New Weapon in Internet Censorship Arms Race
7/9/10 – Trying to get out in front of what they call a censorship arms race, a team of researchers has come up with technology that lets users exchange messages through heavily censored networks in countries such as China and North Korea in hidden channels via user-generated content sites such as Twitter or Flickr. Researchers with the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science will demo the technology known as Collage for the first time at next month’s Usenix security conference and ideally have a working package the public can download by the end of August.
Flash On College Web Sites May Pose Security Risk for Students
7/8/10 – Mustaque Ahamad, a computer-science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said Flash software contains bugs that may leave the machine vulnerable to hackers. “From what I understand, hackers have exploited Web-security holes to taint and upload Flash files to university Web sites,” he said. The tainted files allow hackers to track users who visit the sites. Such security holes also allow attackers to access other information stored in databases behind a server. “Universities need to implement better Web security to ensure that hackers cannot upload tainted content that is hosted by their Web sites,” Mr. Ahamad said. “We are nowhere near achieving perfect security, but the risk can be reduced by being diligent about Web security.”
Urban Remix Makes City Sounds Into Music
7/6/10 – Urban Remix includes the public by encouraging people to record sounds along Atlanta’s Art on the Beltline. People on the 22 mile loop of former rail lines can record and upload sounds via iPhone or Android devices directly to the show’s website. Local musician Recompas remixes the sounds into a concert. The project lasts through October. The entire park is designed to engage people and encourage them to participate in the arts. The Atlanta Beltline, a project intended to span a generation, is meant to jump start culture and growth in the city. The urban remix project was the brainchild of Georgia Tech professors Jason Freeman of the Center for Music Technology in the College of Architecture, Michael Nitsche of the Digital Media program in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and Carl DiSalvo, who is the Assistant Professor in the Digital Media program at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Qualcomm Unveils Augmented Reality Platform for Google Android Phones
7/3/10 – Qualcomm will make a beta version of the software development kit available in the autumn. The company also announced that it had entered in to a partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology to establish an augmented reality game studio. The studio will use Qualcomm’s augmented reality platform to develop new application concepts and prototypes. “Powerful processors and sophisticated graphics engines in today’s mobile devices have only recently reached the point where they can meet the computing requirements for augmented reality,” said Dr Blair MacIntyre, director of the university’s augmented environments lab. “The collaboration with Qualcomm means we’ll have access to both the high-end hardware and core augmented reality technology that will enable us to really push the boundaries of game development.”
How Media Reports Influence Pandemics
7/2/10 – The widespread fear that various pandemics are set to devastate the human race has led to another kind of outbreak: a rash of models predicting how various diseases will spread through society. These models are valuable. They allow governments to estimate how badly their society will be influenced and to make emergency plans accordingly. They also allow authorities to test the efficacy of various strategies for controlling an outbreak, such as restricting travel and closing down social meeting places like restaurants and schools. Now Anna Mummert at Marshall University and Howard Weiss at Georgia Tech examine the effectiveness of another tool: the media. They point out that announcements in the media have a powerful effect on the behaviour of individuals. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, for example, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that travel to SARS infected areas should be restricted. The announcement was widely reported in the media and the number of travellers to these areas dropped dramatically.
Georgia Tech’s Imagine Lab Releases Virtual Tour of Peachtree
7/1/10 – The Georgia Tech Imagine Lab at the College of Architecture today announced the public release of an interactive, virtual environment of Atlanta’s famed Peachtree Street that allows users to explore the 22-mile corridor on a computer. Users can download the environment at no cost, and travel up and down the corridor using a mouse and keyboard, similar to other tools like Google Earth. Originally commissioned by the Peachtree Corridor Taskforce as a tool for planning and collaboration, the environment illustrates a long-range vision for making the street more pedestrian-friendly, with wider sidewalks, more public space and a modern-day streetcar.
Will Qualcomm’s Augmented Reality Play Augment Its Business?
7/1/10 – Qualcomm (QCOM) is the leading wireless chipmaker, selling about 1 in 4 of the radios used in mobile phones last year. So what’s a chipmaker doing offering an augmented reality software development kit and a $200,000 prize for developers who build something cool with the software platform? Qualcomm did just that on Wednesday, June 30, when it showed off a way to play Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots using a patterned piece of paper and a smartphone, then announced an AR development center at Georgia Tech.
Bogost: Look Beyond ‘Short-Lived’ Excitement Over E3 Announcements
6/30/10 – Ruminating on the recently-concluded E3 trade show, developer and academic Ian Bogost evaluates familiarity and the unplumbed depths of design in his latest Persuasive Games feature column for Gamasutra. Looking at some of the new hardware announcements further showcased at the show, he suggests: “Whether it’s a motion controller or a multicore GPU or a 3D display, the industry assumes that new technology embraces unfamiliar familiarity. Kinect, like the Wii before it, is supposed to show us how easy and intuitive play can be, and how mistaken we were ever to think otherwise.
Georgia Tech and Qualcomm Form Game Studio
6/30/10 – Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) has partnered with Georgia Tech to open a reality game studio on the Atlanta campus. The Qualcomm Augmented Reality Game Studio is a research and design center that will lead advances in mobile gaming and interactive media. It will build upon Qualcomm’s augmented reality platform and related graphics technologies to produce new application concepts and prototypes, the organizations said. Augmented reality researcher and Associate Professor of Interactive Computing Blair MacIntyre, director of Georgia Tech’s Augmented Environments Lab, will lead the Qualcomm studio.
Robotics Lizard To Search For Buried Survivors
6/29/10 – Taking another leaf out of nature’s book, a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology is working on a locomotion robot that can swim through hard, yet fluid substances, such as sand or rubble. The 35 centimeter-robot in spandex-covered aluminium segments is powered by six linked motors. It borrows its design from the sandfish, a skink species resembling a lizard, which can dive deep into the sand to escape the heat. The Georgia Tech robot, however, won’t be diving into its environment to escape the sun, but to search for people trapped under rubble and in other disaster sites. This has the potential to save many lives, as finding buried survivors is one of the toughest jobs when dealing with natural disasters, requiring countless of volunteers and workers to dig through a location. The robotic lizard will be able to wiggle through the rubble and locate the trapped people, telling rescuers where to dig.
Notorious Kraken Botnet Rises From the Ashes
6/29/10 – The Kraken botnet, believed by many to be the single biggest zombie network until it was dismantled last year, is staging a comeback that has claimed almost 320,000 PCs, a security researcher said. Since April, this son-of-Kraken botnet has infected an estimated 318,058 machines – about half as big as the original Kraken was at its height in the middle of 2008, according to Paul Royal, a research scientist at the Georgia Tech Information Security Center.
“On You 2″ Bridges the Unlikely Fields of Fashion and Technology
6/25/10 – “Technology people will always be scared of fashion,” said Clint Zeagler while at the “On You 2″ exhibit at MODA. “But it’s not always the other way around. We want fashion people to not be scared of technology.” Zeagler bridges the gap between clothes and science as a Georgia Tech wearable technology teacher and teacher of fashion courses at SCAD. Along with GA Tech Assistant Professor Thad Starner, the two exhibited “On You 2,” a second presentation of wearable technology on display at MODA until July 9. Zeagler along with designer Tiffany Teague translated gadgets into fashion, including an ostrich-leather woman’s racing jacket with conductive thread embroidery. Students in the wearable technology class also showcased garments. Zippers that control the volume of a Bluetooth-connected device and pleats that manipulate a screen given which way you brush it were just some of the ideas on display. The clothes were actually very well-made and designed, all a blousey light cream or white, perfect for a summer night out.
6/25/10 – Today’s cloud services, however, send data for both types of applications over the same path. To remedy this, Valancius has been working on a system called Transit Protocol that would let users set a path that matches the needs of a specific application. The work was done with Nick Feamster, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, Jennifer Rexford, a professor at Princeton University, and Akihiro Nakao, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo.
High School Students Gain Real World Engineering Experience
6/23/10 – A week-long summer camp for advanced teaching of science and engineering is in full swing. The Savannah Engineering Academy coordinated by Georgia Tech Savannah is a program for High school Juniors and Seniors. Students learn about an engineering discipline, conduct hands-on activities and visit local engineering facilities. Each day of the academy offers different activities and topics related to Civil Engineering, Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Water Resource Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering.
6/23/10 – Amid recent media reports of smart grid security concerns and meter angst, it’s easy to wonder whether U.S. plans for an energy overhaul are really all that “smart.” Ask the experts, however, and they’ll assure you that we’ve chosen the right direction for energy production, transmission, distribution and usage. We just have to fine-tune how we’re going to get there.”Yes, the smart grid is generally a good idea,” says professor Deepak Divan, director of Georgia Tech’s Intelligent Power Infrastructure Consortium (IPIC). “The bigger concerns are, ‘What is the smart grid and why are we doing it?’ I think the answers to those two questions are at the heart of the issue. I always joke that if you have 50 people in a room and ask them what the smart grid is, you’ll get a hundred different definitions.”
6/22/10 – Georgia authorities were prepared for the worst. One essential tool that helped them get ready was a new GIS mapping system developed in academia called the Geographic Tool for Visualization and Collaboration, or GTVC. Developed by engineers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, GTVC gave emergency managers a new way to coordinate incident planning in real time. GTVC is designed to track the location and availability of critical emergency resources such as hospitals, transportation equipment, and water during disasters. “GTVC enables an easy, secure mechanism for sharing geographically oriented information regarding emergency response planning,” says Kirk Pennywitt, a senior research engineer in GTRI’s Information Technology and Telecommunications Laboratory.
HASTAC Welcomes Nominations for the Scholars Program for 2010-2011
6/21/10 – The HASTAC Scholars program is comprised of graduate and undergraduate students who are engaged with innovative projects and research at the intersection of digital media & learning, 21st century education, the digital humanities, and technology in the arts, humanities and sciences. We blog, host forums, organize events and discuss new ideas, projects, experiments, and technologies that reconceive teaching, learning, research, writing and structuring knowledge.
TEDxCreativeCoast Hosts ‘Bright Ideas’ Conference
6/19/10 - Billed as a conference driven to “creatively improve Savannah’s future,” the city’s first TEDxCreativeCoast day-long event brought together 18 speakers and a sold-out crowd Friday at Meddin Studios. Although each speaker addressed the conference theme of “designing creativity,” the ideas espoused were as unique and diverse as the individuals themselves. With Savannah’s event sold out more than a week in advance, simulcast parties popped up around town, including one at Thincspace downtown and at Georgia Tech’s Savannah campus on the Westside.
New Tech Moves Beyond the Mouse, Keyboard, and Screen
6/18/10 – Despite the recent advances, a number of hurdles remain in the “natural” progression of electronics. New methods of input sometimes come with new problems. Using arm and hand motions to control computers, for instance, can become tiring, said Beth Mynatt, director of the GVU center at the Georgia Institute of Technology. And if such motions are taken to TV sets, as Toshiba has demonstrated, then there may be some unintended and hilarious consequences, she said. Imagine changing a channel by waving your arms. “Are they trying to change the channel or are they making rude gestures to the umpire?” a computer might think, she said. “[The computer is] going to get it wrong and nobody’s going to want to do it. They’re going to be much happier fumbling around with that remote.”
Knight News Challenge Winners Take Home $2.74 Million in Grant Awards
6/17/10 – The ratio of digital innovators to tech toys may have disappointed one spectator, who “thought there’d be more iPads” in the audience when the winners of the 2010 Knight News Challenge were unveiled on Wednesday at the Future of News and Civic Media conference at MIT. The men and women behind the twelve winning projects, however, had other reasons—including $2.74 million in grant awards—to celebrate. Winning projects included The Cartoonist, conceived by Ian Bogost and Michael Mateas as a way to re-imagine editorial, like political cartoons, and make it interactive in the form of current event videogames. “With the move to online distribution, local newspapers haven’t really reinvented these forums for the digital age and they’re at risk of disappearing,” Bogost said.
Partnership with Irish Universities Aim to Boost Enterprise and Job Creation
6/17/10 – Brian Cowen has announced a new partnership between two Irish universities and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US to turn academic research into job-creating business opportunities. He said the institute being formed by the University of Limerick (UL), NUI Galway (NUIG) and Georgia Tech was exactly the type of development the Government was trying to encourage. “It can help us achieve our goals for increasing collaboration between higher education institutions, establishing better linkages between higher education and industry, and delivering the economic growth and job creation we need in the years head.” Georgia Tech is the leading academic centre in the US for industrial engineering and last year raised over $500 million (€404 million) in research funds. Since 2006, it has operated an international campus in Athlone but the new translational research institute with UL and NUIG represents a big expansion of its Irish activities.
6/17/10 – The Aware Home Research Initiative at Georgia Institute of Technology is devoted to the multidisciplinary exploration of emerging technologies and services based in the home. Starting in 1998, our collection of faculty and students has created a unique research facility that allows us to simulate and evaluate user experiences with off-the-shelf and state-of-the-art technologies. With specific expertise in health, education, entertainment and usable security, we are able to apply our research to problems of significant social and economic impact. New technologies show great promise when applied to the home domain. The opportunities are vast, ranging from new modes of entertainment, services to simplify the management of the home and its myriad activities, and much-needed assistance for individuals at risk and the busy family members who care for them. These or other similar technologies are likely to become more widespread and eventually reach consumers on a large scale, I suspect. The “smart home” has been long promised, but with the gulf crisis highlighting the looming energy crisis, smart grids and smart homes may not be entertaining ideas, they may be necessities.
Skribit Founder Joins Notifo as Co-Founder
6/16/10 - Paul Stamatiou, founder of blog suggestion company Skribit, and automotive spokesgeek, has joined real-time mobile notification outfit Notifo. A product of this Winter’s Ycombinator, its product is currently available for iPhones and in development for Android and Blackberry. Stamatiou is joining the San Francisco-based start-up as a co-founder with fellow Georgia Tech alumnus Chad Etzel. The now two-man shop is, like the early days of Hewlett-Packard and Google, actually in a garage in Menlo Park. The company provides an API that allows any provider to create an immediate mobile messaging services for users, anything from new product release to a band’s tour, which are then delivered through Notifo. The service is free, so far, to end-users, though charging fees for premier delivery is a future possibility. Service providers start out with a free base rate and are charged based on the number of messages sent.
Oprah Makes Surprise Visit at Ron Clark Academy Graduation
6/16/10 – The inaugural class of the Ron Clark Academy graduated from eighth grade Wednesday with pomp, circumstance – and a guest appearance by Oprah Winfrey. Enlarge photo Hyosub Shin, hshin@ajc.com Oprah Winfrey speaks during The Ron Clark Academy’s first graduation ceremony June 16, 2010, at Ferst Center for the Arts at Georgia Tech. Related Oprah speaks at Ron Clark Academy’s graduation More Atlanta area news » Cherokee charter school supporters not giving up after denial DeKalb officials travel to China to attract developers Mental retardation burden of proof in death cases unconstitutional City to pay woman jailed for asking ‘why’ Top news around the Web The talk-show host and media mogul, who has donated nearly $2 million to the private school since it opened three years ago, decided to deliver her well-wishes to the Class of 2010 in person. And she was simply one of the celebs present for the star-studded graduation at Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech Students Show Their Game, “Vision by Proxy,” at E3
6/15/10 – A team of Georgia Tech students will be showing off their game, Vision by Proxy, at the IndieCade Showcase at E3 this week. The game will be shown at the IndieCade booth in the West Hall, booth 4344. Andrew Ho, who will be returning to Tech this fall to work on a Master’s in the Digital Media program, explains how the game works. The story of Vision by Proxy is easily on the whimsical side, though with a somewhat macabre element. The player takes the role of a small, blue alien that consists of two legs and one eye, going to Earth with his spaceship and friends to scout out the inhabitants. Somehow the ship gets damaged and he falls out, and is then tasked with having to meet the natives (us in this case), collect parts to repair his ship and get on board.
Now You Can Use Your iPhone as a Personal Back-up Band
6/15/10 – Lot’s of us like to sing, but most of us confine our warbling to the shower or singing to the radio in the car. Now, however, thanks to a “reverse karaoke” application for the iPhone developed by Atlanta-based Khush, you can sing into your iPhone and play it back with the kinds of vocal effects that make professionals sound so hot. Using artificial intelligence, the application, called LaDiDa, analyzes the voice of the person singing into the phone and plays it back with appropriate music. Prerna Gupta, Khush CEO, chatted with us and demonstrated the application in the lobby of the Atlanta Technology Development Center.
How Does a Terminator Know When to Not Terminate?
6/14/10 – In 2009 Georgia Tech roboticist Ronald Arkin completed a three-year research project for the Army to create an autonomous military robot software system imbued with basic ethics. More sophisticated versions of the code might someday give a robot an artificial conscience, based on standard laws of war and on guidelines such as the Army Field Manual and the Geneva Conventions. This “ethical governor,” as Arkin calls it, would act like a judge reviewing every instance in which a military robot might use lethal force.
Postcolonial Computing: A Lens on Design and Development
6/14/10 – Rebecca E. Grinter, GVU Center and School of Interactive Computing College of Computing Georgia Institute of Technology: As our technologies travel to new cultural contexts and our designs and methods engage new constituencies, both our design and analytical practices face significant challenges. We offer postcolonial computing as an analytical orientation to better understand these challenges. This analytic orientation inspires four key shifts in our approach to HCI4D efforts: generative models of culture, development as a historical program, uneven economic relations, and cultural epistemologies. Then, through reconsideration of the practices of engagement, articulation and translation in other contexts, we offer designers and researchers ways of understanding use and design practice to respond to global connectivity and movement.
Arthritis Gloves: Making Life Easier
6/14/10 – At Georgia Tech, human factors engineers — who study how to make things easier for people to use — developed these arthritis gloves. The gloves simulate the functional limitations of arthritis, by restricting the ability to grip and turn by 35 to 50 percent. “They reduce the coefficient of friction that someone can apply to a product or a packaging solution and that results in them requiring having to apply more grip,” Bradley Fain, Ph.D., a human factors engineer at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, explained. The gloves are hand made, with a double layer of neoprene, have a slick palm surface, and internal wires that stiffen the joints and limits inward movement of the first two fingers and thumb.
TEDxCreativeCoast Conference to Explore Community’s Brightest Ideas
6/13/10 – The TEDxCreativeCoast event will be highlighted by several well-known local speakers, including Georgia Tech Savannah Director David Frost and broadcast television consultant Murray Wilson. Each “TEDTalk” is limited to 18 minutes. “It was important that we put on the kind of event that the namesake of TED is known for, and we’re thrilled to offer such an impressive lineup of speakers in our first event,” TEDxCreativeCoast organizer Frank Spencer said. “We hope to do a lot more of these in the future.”
Kids Experiment with ‘Video Playdates’
6/11/10 – Lana Yarosh, a Ph.D. candidate in human-centered computing at Georgia Tech University, has been working with Microsoft Research to come up with ways for 7- and 8-year-olds to play with each other more freely “across distance.” She has tested several add-ons to typical video chat systems that she hopes will make video playdates more engaging for children. In one method, kids hold a second camera, so they can show their friends the toys they are playing with up close. In another, playmates share a virtual playpen of sorts, where they see each others’ toys and bodies projected onto the floor. Both of those prototypes helped the kids have more fun, she said.
Willow Garage: Spotlight on Georgia Tech
6/7/10 – A PR2 will soon arrive at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, where an interdisciplinary team will research how robots can help older adults live independently at home. The populations of the United States, Europe, and Japan are all getting older. With proportionally fewer young people around to provide care, experts are concerned that costs will skyrocket and seniors will not receive the help they desire. Robots like the PR2 may be able to help older adults stay in their homes longer with a high quality of life. The Georgia Tech team aims to make progress towards this long-held dream. Rather than try to guess what seniors want, the team will work with older adults to better understand their needs and how robots can help. The team will also write code to make the PR2 perform helpful tasks at home. By working closely with seniors throughout the research process, the team hopes to better meet real needs and accelerate progress. To make everything more realistic, the robot will spend some of its time in a real, two-story house on the Georgia Tech campus, called the Aware Home. This will enable older adults to work with the robot in a convincing environment, and will give the software developers a good place to test their code.
GE Opening Tourist Attraction to Explain ‘Smart Grid’
6/6/10 - People behind the $15 million GE Smart Grid Technology Center of Excellence in Cobb County believe the so-called customer experience showcase to open on the ground floor of the center in October will be a legitimate attraction for science geeks and novices alike. It will have video demonstrations and interactive displays to help explain exactly what the smart grid is, and why it’s the future. The smart grid, which has been labeled “the energy Internet,” combines modern information technologies with the existing and outdated electrical infrastructure or grid, allowing for a more efficient, less wasteful and more stable delivery of power to consumers. It can lead to lower costs, fewer power outages and more use of green power. GE, at the forefront in the development of the smart grid, is working with Georgia Tech in the project that state officials say could help establish metro Atlanta as a hub of the growing green energy industry, offering significant long term job and development benefits for the company, the school and the region.
Contemporary Design Takes Hold in Atlanta
6/5/10 – June 5, 2010, might be remembered as the day modern design took Atlanta. It’s certainly taking over the Woodruff Arts Center. The High Museum opens “European Design Since 1985: Shaping the New Century,” which fills the Anne Cox Chambers Wing with innovative furniture, lighting, housewares and industrial design, and with it, a day of activities. Synergy abounds. SCAD and Georgia Tech hosted a symposium on video game design. MODA is working with professional organizations to mount a Design Week in October. As Labaco says, “It took a while, but it’s all coming together.”
Willow Garage Gets Robots into Researcher’s Hands
6/3/10 – If you’ve never seen 11 all-purpose robots doing a choreographed flag-waving dance — and really, who has? — Willow Garage was the place to be Wednesday night. That’s because Willow Garage, a developer of robotics hardware and software, threw a party to celebrate the “graduation” of 11 teams from around the world, each of which has won the right to take possession for two years of one of Willow Garage’s PR2 open-source robots and work on a series of innovative and unique research projects. The 11 teams — from Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat in Freiburg, Germany; Katholieke Universiteit in Leuven, Belgium; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Stanford University; Georgia Institute of Technology; Technische Universitat in Munich; the University of California at Berkeley; the University of Pennsylvania; the University of Southern California; the University of Tokyo; and the Bosch Research and Technology Center — will get a rare chance to spend two years with a PR2. Willow Garage is rolling out the PR2 beta program in hopes that the work done by the 11 institutions will further the field of robotics and, over the long haul, create a wider market for all-purpose robots.
Toomah Wins Business Launch Contest
6/3/10 – The Atlanta-based company that automates the interviewing process won the 2010 GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition, the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) said. Toomah got $50,000 cash and more than $200,000 in donated services from the Atlanta business community. The other finalists in the fifth annual competition were Khu.sh, a music intelligence application company; SolidFire, a cloud computing company; and Transaction Tree, a green company. The three will split the remaining $200,000 in pro bono services, a first for the competition. Judges included Stephen Fleming, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech.
6/1/10 – Exergaming” is a genre of video game that uses physical activity as input. With its roots in Virtual Reality research of the 1980s, exergaming has become accessible and popular thanks to Nintendo’s Wii Sports exercise games such as as tennis, baseball, golf, bowling, and boxing. Ian Bogost presents an interesting history of exergaming in The Rhetoric of Exergaming.
6/1/10 – It was Krishna Bharat who identified a more profound form of inefficiency. As a student at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, Bharat had written for the campus newspaper while taking his computer-science degree. “In a second life, I would be a journalist,” he once told an Indian newspaper. (When the Indian newspaper asks me, I will say: In a second life, I would be a successful Google executive.) He got his Ph.D. at Georgia Tech and was an early Google hire, in 1999. After the 9/11 attacks two years later, he grew worried about the narrowness of news he was receiving through the U.S. media. “I felt that we really had to catch up with the world’s news,” he told me. “To get a broad understanding, you had to visit sites in Europe and Asia and the Middle East. I was wondering if Google could do something to make the world’s news information available.”
Developer Preview of the Kamra Mobile AR Browser at ARE2010
6/1/10 – The Georgia Institute of Technology announces the release of the developer preview of Kamra, the first mobile augmented reality (AR) browser for the KHARMA (KML/HTML Augmented Reality Mobile Architecture) development platform based on open Web standards. The developer preview will be released at ARE2010 – Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, CA June 2. The release of Kamra for the iPhone in the iTunes Store is expected before the end of June.
Botnets Target Websites with ‘Posers’
6/1/10 - Botnets increasingly are creating phony online accounts on legitimate websites and online communities in order to steal information from enterprises. This alternative form of targeted attack by botnets has become popular as botnet tools have made bots easier to purchase and exploit. Merrick Furst, botnet expert and distinguished professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, says bots are showing up “en masse” to customer-facing websites — posing as people.
Georgia Tech’s ATDC: 30 Years of Supporting Startups
5/25/10 – So what if Stephen Fleming threw a party, and everybody came – including Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson? That was just about the experience at Monday’s ATDC Startup Showcase, which doubled as both the 2010 commencement event for a new class of graduates, and a celebration of the ATDC’s 30-year anniversary. In addition to featuring more than 40 ATDC member companies, the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center was filled with investors, professors, entrepreneurs and local startup celebs.
Creating New Freedom, Mobility for Disabled
5/21/10 - John Anschutz is enriching the lives of patients at the Shepherd Center through technology. Joining Shepherd in 1986 after graduating from Georgia Tech, Anschutz has served as manager of the Assistive Technology Center since 1995, a center he helped form. For his work to create comprehensive services for people with disabilities in the areas of wheeled seating and mobility, adapted driving services and electronic aids for daily living as well as computer accessibility, Anschutz is a finalist for the 2010 Atlanta Business Chronicle Health-Care Heroes Innovation award. “It’s all about enabling, empowering and taking somebody who came in without the skills to achieve in the community and they are leaving with all the skills and tools and training to have a fair go of getting out in the community and back to school and back to work,” Anschutz said. In one of his recent projects, Anschutz is reworking Shepherd’s call system to make it easier for patients to control their environment and call for assistance.
David Byrne on New Urbanism, Burning Down of Houses
5/20/10 – If you were in the market for an introduction to the New Urbanism — what is it for? what is it against? what is it about, really? — your choices on the opening day of the Congress of the New Urbanism (CNU 18) were either a seven-hour seminar with some of the rock stars of the movement (Andres Duany and Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones) or a deceptively modest 20-minute slide show with an actual rock star, David Byrne. The polymathic Talking Head has been a critic of sprawl and other soul-dead environments for quite a long time. This is a man who once published a book of absurdist PowerPoint art, not to mention co-wrote the lyrics to “Burning Down The House”.
ADTC Startup Showcase Celebrates 30 Years
5/19/10 – We spoke this morning with Stephen Fleming about next Monday’s ATDC Startup Showcase. In addition to being the commencement event for the 2010 class, this marks the 30-year anniversary of ATDC. It sounds like the agenda will be equal parts informative (Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson is on the agenda) and just plain old networking fun. And for those who want to see the products and companies, look for more than 40 ATDC member companies to have display tables at the Georgia Tech Hotel & Conference Center. You can head over to ATDC.org to get your tickets for the May 24th event.
Walking Could Recharge Your Smartphone or MP3 Player
5/19/10 – Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are harvesting energy through activities like walking or running that could power or recharge smartphones and portable music players in the future. Consumer electronics are quickly getting smaller, but the batteries cannot keep up, said Zhong Lin Wang, professor and director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Institute of Technology. Smaller devices tend to consume less power, and the lab is trying to come up with ways in which motions like tapping, bending or walking could generate energy to keep the devices running. The researchers have developed tiny nanowires made of zinc oxide that are capable of generating an electric field through force or motion. Zinc oxide has piezoelectric potential, which provides the ability for nanowires to convert mechanical energy into electric energy.
One Day Your Pants May Use Nanofibers to Power Up Your iPod
5/19/10 - A team from the Georgia Institute of Technology developed fibers similar to Lin’s several years ago using synthetic Kevlar strands coated with zinc oxide rods. The resulting filaments, which look like hair rollers, produce energy when rubbed together. Led by professor Zhong Lin Wang, the researchers have also produced electrical currents from fingers typing on cellphones, hamsters running on exercise wheels, even vibrating vocal cords. Tiny modules could eventually be implanted in the human body to harvest energy from muscle movement or blood vessels, Wang said.
Meet Simon, the Social Robot that Can Learn and Adapt to Humans
5/18/10 – Across the country – and around the world – researchers are working to make “social robots” a part of everyday human life. From helping the disabled to live independently to tutoring struggling students, these human-like machines could play a major role in our future. At the Socially Intelligent Machines Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, assistant professor Andrea Thomaz is among the researchers designing interfaces to allow robots to learn from everyday people. Thomaz answered my questions last week about her latest project, Simon.
Second Thoughts About the Autopilot
5/17/10 – Finding the balance between too much technology and too little is crucial, according to William B. Rouse, an engineering and computing professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Complacency is an issue, but designing the interaction between human and technical so the human has the right level of judgment when you need them is a design task in itself,” Mr. Rouse said. “When the person has no role in the task, there’s a much greater risk of complacency.” Some airline pilots confirm this. “We’ve all been there, not intentionally, but because you get distracted from the task at hand,” said a captain at Continental Airlines who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Complacency is very subtle, he said, “No light comes on to tell you that you’re being complacent.”
Georgia Tech Wins $1.5 Million Grant for Center for International Business Education and Research
5/17/10 – Georgia Tech’s Center for International Business Education and Research (GT CIBER) was recently awarded a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, renewing its status as one of 34 national resource centers in international business funded by the federal government. Schools compete every four years for the funding, which will enable GT CIBER to pursue collaborative global business projects through 2014. Tech titled its grant application “Innovative, Sustainable and Secure: Education and Research as Keys to Global Growth and Competitiveness.” Administratively located within Georgia Tech College of Management, GT CIBER serves as a catalyst to integrate international business into the curriculum and works to ensure the long-term international competitiveness of the United States through support of research, business education initiatives, and corporate outreach activities.
Musical Math Program Hits the Right Note
5/16/10 – For some Cobb County students having trouble with math, finding help is easy as listening to their favorite song. A pilot program called Musical Math is combining high school mentors, elementary students and music for academic success. It’s a whole new beat to learning. The Musical Math program was created by Clark Atlanta University and Georgia Institute of Technology graduate, Clemmie Whately. She hopes the pilot program will be expanded to other Cobb County Schools.
Now You Can Use Your iPhone as a Personal Back-up Band
5/14/10 – Lot’s of us like to sing, but most of us confine our warbling to the shower or singing to the radio in the car. Now, however, thanks to a “reverse karaoke” application for the iPhone developed by Atlanta-based Khush, you can sing into your iPhone and play it back with the kinds of vocal effects that make professionals sound so hot. Using artificial intelligence, the application, called LaDiDa, analyzes the voice of the person singing into the phone and plays it back with appropriate music.
Threatdown – Militart Food Police, Jazz Robots, and Pretty Girls
5/12/10 – Childhood obesity threatens America’s security, a jazz robot improvises with human players, and attractive women give men heart disease. Georgia Tech’s Music Technology program and Shimon, the robotic marimba player, are featured on the Colbert Report.
Tom McDermott Named GTRI Interim Director
5/11/10 - Tom McDermott, who has served as deputy director and director of research at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), has been named GTRI’s interim director. McDermott will assume GTRI leadership from current director Stephen E. Cross, who was named Georgia Tech’s first executive vice president for research on May 1. “Tom’s ability to think strategically, innovate and take calculated risk made him the perfect candidate for the job of interim director of GTRI,” Cross said. “He is committed to GTRI’s role as part of Georgia Tech, has a wide and deep knowledge of the work done at GTRI and understands the customers’ needs.”
Georgia Tech Professor Ian Bogost: “Flash is not a right.”
5/9/10 – According to game designer, developer and university professor, Ian Bogost, the brouhaha about Flash and Apple’s mobile platforms reveals some disturbing trends in the computer development business. In his blog, Bogost says that there are plenty of programming languages and IDEs but that developers aren’t concerned about this “computational literacy.” He said Georgia Tech’s Computational Media curriculum committee is considering creating a history of programming languages course that would look at the evolution of a number of different languages and environments. In addition, this course might focus on how to learn new languages and environments, Bogost suggested. He said that this skill and process isn’t obvious to today’s students.
Georgia Tech Robot Masters the Art of Opening Doors and Drawers
5/6/10 - To be useful in human environments, robots must be able to do things that people do on a daily basis — things like opening doors, drawers, and cabinets. We perform those actions effortlessly, but getting a robot to do the same is another story. Now Georgia Tech researchers have come up with a promising approach. Professor Charlie Kemp and Advait Jain at Georgia Tech’s Healthcare Robotics Laboratory have programmed a robot to autonomously approach and open doors and drawers. It does that using omni-directional wheels and compliant arms, and the only information it needs is the location and orientation of the handles.
Willow Garage Giving Away 11 PR2 Robots Worth Over $4 Million
5/4/10 - Willow Garage, the Silicon Valley company dedicated to advancing open robotics, is announcing this morning that it will award 11 PR2 robots to institutions and universities around the world as part of its efforts to speed-up research and development in personal robotics. The company, in Menlo Park, Calif., hopes that the 11 organizations [see list below] in the United States, Europe, and Japan that are receiving PR2 robots at no cost—a total worth over US $4 million—will use the robots to explore new applications and contribute back to the open-source robotics community. The Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech will be placing the PR2 in an “Aware Home” to study how robots can help with homecare and creative assistive capabilities for older adults. Their research includes creating easier ways for adults to interact with robots, and enabling robots to interact with everyday objects like drawers, lamps, and light switches. Their human-robot interaction focus will help ensure that the software development is closely connected to real-world needs.
Games that Can Change the World
5/4/10 - Not everyone was impressed by the White House’s announcement, however. “This contest reads as PR more than politics,” Dr. Ian Bogost, an associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and founder of Persuasive Games, wrote on his blog. Such contests, he argued, “promise a magic dreamworld in which cute carrots somehow eradicate a century of politics and economics…” In general, Bogost believes the real potential of serious games is not necessarily in their ability to change behaviors, but in their power to encourage players to consider the pros and cons of their actions. He cautions against over-hyping the power of games to change the world and thinks the genre still has a long way to go.
Emergency Alerts Through Wireless Score High with People with Disabilites
4/30/10 – A group at Georgia Tech recently released a report saying people with disabilities like use of wireless devices for receiving emergency alerts. Results were compelling. The researchers first used parameters similar to Emergency Alert System (EAS) alerts. EAS tones and announcements were simulated using custom software to make them more accessible to people with various disabilities. Also, URL references for additional information were included, just as EAS announcements refer viewers and listeners to other sources for additional information. Those expressing an improvement over their current alerting methods were in the 80%+ and 90%+ ranges, depending on the nature of the disability.
Georgia Tech Researchers Tackle Smartphone Security Issues
4/30/10 – Jon Giffin and Patrick Traynor, both assistant professors at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, are tackling the security risks of mobile devices with a $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Giffin’s background is in software for mobile devices, while Traynor is concerned primarily with cellular networks. They have a lot of work ahead of them. The expected release this summer of Apple’s iPhone 4g, which includes the ability to keep different applications open simultaneously, advances the evolution of smartphones and similar devices to a new level. But enhanced multitasking capabilitiesmay also enable malware to run in the background undetected.
Insight on Mobile Phone Viruses & Other Malware
4/29/10 – Thieves will always go where there is money. Now that people have begun transacting business on their phones there is sure to be a surge in spyware written for mobile platforms. Around the end of last year a new report on emerging threats from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center mentioned that botnets are going to hit cell phones by mid-2009. Even if operating systems are different, browsers are still common. You have Opera Mini on most Java and Symbian phones while Windows Mobile comes with Internet Explorer; on Apple’s iPhone you have Safari. All of these browsers have vulnerabilities that can be exploited, although not always on the mobile version. Now that people have started transacting on their mobile phones, we will see more instances of data theft than denial of service (DoS) attacks.
Distracted Driving: Legislature Takes on Texting
4/28/10 - About the scariest thing David Strayer has ever seen is a nondescript eight-inch black bracket. It’s on sale on the Internet for $28.99, designed to hold a DVD player or an iPad – the new mini-computer that surfs the Web and plays movies. On windshields. “Sheer madness,” sums up Strayer, a psychology professor who estimates that driver distractions from whiny kids to ringing cellphones already claim thousands of lives every year. Legislation likely to come up for a vote here on Thursday, the last day of this year’s General Assembly, would address some electronic distractions but not others. Sponsors say they want to protect public safety, but it is sometimes difficult to get ahead of inventions with legal bans, before evidence exists to prove what is dangerous. And there will be a spotlight on the effort: On Friday, Winfrey is declaring “No Phone Zone Day,” and hosting rallies against distracted driving in five cities, including a video link to Georgia Tech. The show cites a study showing 35 percent of metro Atlantans admitting they talk on a cellphone while driving every day.
4/26/10 – If you’ve forgotten to charge your iPod and a power plug is nowhere in sight, a simple run could help you get out of the trouble — if new technology being developed is successful. Every step you take can generate electricity. By packing 20,000 nanowires into three square centimeters, Georgia Tech scientists have developed the world’s first gadget powered solely by piezoelectric materials. A piezoelectric material when pushed or pulled creates a mild electrical charge.
Vote for FutureMedia Circle Company Usable Health in TAG Business Launch Competition
4/25/10 – The exciting annual GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition is an event designed to help a local startup technology-based company launch its business. Applicants, then semifinalists, then finalists vie for the $50K cash award and services valued at an additional $200K+, for a total grand prize of $250,000+ to be awarded June 2, 2010!
New Wireless Captioning System Debuts at Dallas Cowboys Stadium
4/24/10 – A wireless captioning system developed at GTRI has debuted at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. ”This technology allows stadium guests who are deaf or hard of hearing to receive real-time captions for all public address system announcements and referee calls on a handheld device,” said Leanne West, a GTRI senior research scientist and executive director of Intelligent Access, a company in the VentureLab process at ATDC, Georgia Tech’s startup company accelerator. Intelligent Access teamed up with Houston-based Softeq Development Corporation in November 2009 to integrate its real-time captioning capabilities into the DURATEQ Assistive Technology Version (ATV) handhelds for use at the stadium. Final testing was completed during the Cotton Bowl in December 2009 and the service was unveiled at a Dallas Cowboys home game in January 2010.
Damballa Deploys New Internet Security Forces
4/23/10 - Damballa Inc., a burgeoning Internet security business in Atlanta, is one of the metro’s startup success stories. Now, its challenge is to emerge as an established company. The tech company has garnered three rounds of capital investment totaling around $17.5 million since it was founded in 2006. The technology is centered around Internet security innovations birthed at Georgia Tech. The key to what could become the company’s success is a unique iteration of Internet security products, said newly minted CEO Val Rahmani, who took charge of the company in November. “This was founded out of Georgia Tech. What they did is they looked at Internet security, and we saw a hole and a solution to the hole,” she said. “These types of security problems evade traditional security software.”
4/23/10 – Last year presented a tough market across all economic sectors, and that was particularly true for technology startup companies, which rely on outside investment to build new ideas into businesses… In 2009, for example, investors, in some cases, saw their investment portfolios lose a third of their value, said Lance Weatherby, with the Advanced Technology Development Center, a tech startup accelerator tied to Georgia Tech. “Lately, the stock market has performed pretty well. It’s getting back in whack again,” Weatherby said. “I think investment in startup companies is going to follow the economy. It’s not going to be robust. It’s not going to be like in the [tech] bubble days.”
Georgia Venture Funding More Than Doubles
4/23/10 – Cautious optimism and opportunistic timing are nudging venture firms off the sidelines and back into the investing game… Among the notable raises was Atlanta-based CardioMEMs Inc. (Based on research from Georgia Tech) The company, which develops wireless medical devices for monitoring chronic diseases, raised $30 million from Arboretum Ventures and Foundation Medical Partners, according to the MoneyTree report.
4/22/10 – It saddens me that so few of us make music. I believe that all of us are musically creative and have something interesting to say. I also wish that everyone could share in this experience that I find so fulfilling. To come closer to realizing that wish, I am inviting readers of The Score to compose their own music and share it. How? Read on. As a music professor at Georgia Tech, I want all of my students to experience creating music. I push them to compose even if they do not play a musical instrument, cannot read notation and fear they have nothing valuable to say. Technology serves as a creative gateway for many of these students. I help them to learn about music production software and programming languages and I encourage them to think about questions of aesthetics, technique and structure. Often, students who have little prior experience make the music I find most compelling.
Pramana Launches New Bot Detection and Elimination Technologies to Help Website Owners “Kick Bot”
4/21/10 – Pramana is an Internet fraud protection company that provides website owners with innovative technologies that detect and eliminate bots. The company was founded in 2007 out of the Georgia Institute of Technology in response to the growing need to combat hackers, bots and harmful malware designed to commit fraud on websites. Pramana offers a range of products designed to distinguish human visitors from automated processes, enabling customers to halt fraudulent use of their websites. Using patented technology, Pramana’s products set a new standard in bot detection and elimination that integrate seamlessly and are completely invisible to legitimate visitors.
Forbes Names ATDC One of the Ten Technology Incubators That Are Changing the World
4/20/10 – Since 1980 the center has launched more than 120 tech companies that have collectively raised more than $1 billion in outside financing. The center is backed by a fund that will invest $1 in a company for every $3 of private capital, up to $1 million. The companies here are heavy with Georgia Tech alumni, but that’s not a requirement.
Chimerical Avatars and Other Identity Experiments from Prof. Fox Harrell
4/19/10 – After spending his youth happily playing computer and table-top role-playing games as pale-grey-skinned elves with long, straight, silver hair (usually over one eye), or “forcing African-coifed robot pilots into the anime world of Macross,” Fox Harrell says he started wanting to play characters that expressed and presented themselves in ways that captured his real world cultural values, though still set in those same fantasy worlds. That hasn’t always come easily. Fox is a professor and director of the Imagination, Computation, and Expression Lab/Studio at Georgia Tech. His research and software development are all about creating new opportunities for fluid, nuanced narratives, identities, and social categories to take shape–and shift shape–online.
Tech ‘Geek’ Finds Passion in Bluegrass
4/16/10 -Keith McGreggor is a high-tech guy with a low-tech passion. His day job involves sifting through the hundreds of inventions that pour out of Georgia Tech and figuring out which have the potential to become promising startups. “I see about one invention every day or two,” McGreggor said. “One in about eight ideas actually become companies.” McGreggor, 49, pulls an eraser-sized block off a shelf in his office at the Advanced Technology Development Center. Developed at Georgia Tech, it is lightweight concrete-like material that floats and is fireproof and waterproof.
Georgia Tech Wants Music Doctorates
4/16/2010 – Georgia Tech may seem an unlikely school to offer a PhD in music technology, but soon it will if the Board of Regents agrees next week.
No other public or private college in Georgia offers the degree. While the nationally ranked engineering school has long had a band and glee club, it is growing a reputation in the field of music technology, the science of the recording and manipulation of music. Housed in Tech’s College of Architecture, the 2-year-old Center for Music Technology already grants undergraduate and masters degrees, with 14 students currently enrolled. Its research cuts across such fields as engineering, computation, material science, design, and music, all the while keeping a sharp focus on aesthetics.
4/16/10 – Utkarsh Shrivastava, a master’s student in information security at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has combined SpotRank data with Yahoo’s database of companies to create a search tool that ranks local businesses according to how busy they are at any time. “It could also expand to a route based model,” says Shrivastava. This would allow users to choose the least-crowded means of transport between two points–an application feature that has already been implemented on roadways by some GPS devices.
Britney Spears-inspired CEO Sells Reverse Karaoke
4/14/10 - Parag Chordia, Gupta’s husband and Khush’s chief technology officer, is a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and director of the school’s music intelligence lab. LaDiDa was developed there, Gupta said. The software is “trained” to recognize notes and common chord progressions, Gupta said. To do this, a composer inputs “musical atoms,” the term she uses to describe small chunks of music. The software makes a guess based on its training on what will sound best with the song it hears to quickly arrange the chunks.
Simon the robot gets upgraded with voice and face recognition, still loves organizing blocks
4/14/10 – The last time we checked in on Simon, he was moving pretty slowly, moving some blocks from one bin to another, and while he was creepily silent, we still had high hopes for his future. Well, Simon’s seemingly come a long way — if recent footage of him and his creator, Georgia Institute of Technology researcher, Andrea Thomaz — are to be believed. Simon’s host of new features now include voice recognition (he’s got a Stephen Hawking-style voice of his own), facial recognition, sound localization, plus he’s way speedier now. All of this helps Simon learn how to do things on his own without constantly being commanded.
Georgia Welcomes NCR to New Headquarters
4/13/10 - Among the incentives used to attract NCR: The company gets a corporate tax break, $15 million in free training and research help and the ability to keep the state payroll taxes it deducts from its workers’ paychecks. But Nuti said an array of factors – Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Georgia Tech, affordable housing, reasonable cost of living and an “innovative culture in Georgia” — played an equal role in the decision. ”This is a state that is committed to attracting high-tech companies,” Nuti said. “They’re certainly doing a good job of that in fostering relationships between communities, businesses and educational institutions that cultivate talent and develop groundbreaking advances in technology.”
Simon the Robot Has the Ability to Learn
4/13/10 – Simon the robot, who has the ability to learn new tasks, got his first public outing at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Atlanta Monday. Prior to the show he was a project of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Socially Intelligent Machines lab for three years. ”We’re interested in machine learning algorithms where you don’t need to necessarily be an expert in machine learning to interact,” said Andrea Thomaz. She and her team of researchers are working on robots that could be installed in the home and don’t need to be preprogrammed with a set of tasks.
The Inventure Prize: Georgia Tech Way of Promoting Young Entrepreneurs
4/13/10 – A portmanteau of invent and adventure, the InVenture Prize sprung from Georgia Tech professors’ desire to showcase engineering students’ innovation and bring their ideas to market. Eight finalists presented their ideas to a panel of judges charged with determining innovation, marketability, market size, inventor passion and probability of success. The payout for an invention with potential? First place winner Patrick Whaley walked away with $15,000 as well as the $5,000 People’s Choice Award for his strengthening apparel. Sarah Vaden received $10,000 for second place and her novel drum set that changes pitch with the help of compressed air. Both inventors will receive assistance in filing a patent application, valued around $20,000, along with their prize money.
Connect 2 Congress Lets You Track Your Senator, One Vote at a Time
4/12/10 – So, if it’s our civic duty to keep up with what our government is up to, how exactly do we do that? Peter Kinnaird, master’s student in Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, wondered the same thing and came up with a program that makes keeping up with one’s representatives as easy as clicking a mouse. The system, Connect 2 Congress, will be presented at CHI 2010, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, being held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, April 10-15. The system works by analyzing congressional voting records with a type of mathematical analysis known as a Poole-Rosenthal score. Connect 2 Congress looks at all the votes that take place over that session of Congress and assigns values to it. Each yes vote gets a one and each no gets a zero. Those who don’t vote are given a nine, which excludes them from the count for that issue.
Why Zynga ticks off the games industry
4/12/10 – To Ian Bogost, a professor at Georgia Tech and a founding partner of the Persuasive Games studio, it’s not surprising that people like Sutphin are willing to publicly articulate their frustrations about Zynga or worry about burning bridges with the company. “There’s no perception of any bridges at all,” Bogost said. “Some might see that they’re perceived as total outsiders, even interlopers, that have swooped down like aliens to destroy us, but no matter what your opinion is, [some people] don’t see any commonality.” Bogost said he feels that the booing at Mooney at the GDC awards event was inappropriate behavior. But he speculated that those who had such strong reactions to Mooney’s speech were responding to a sense that Zynga has different priorities than others in the game developer community. “Maybe it’s [a] lack of humility,” Bogost said. People in the community “don’t seem to have a sense that [Zynga is] concerned about the kind of attitudes that people have about their games.”
4/8/10 – Still, the question of life continues to divide even the robotics world, according to Ayanna Howard, director of Georgia Tech’s Human-Automation Systems Lab. ”Some say robots are alive because they can have emergent intelligence,” Howard said. “They can emerge behaviors and therefore, if they’re thinking, acting and learning, then they have semblance of being alive, just like people. And then you have more the philosophical world that says no, our consciousness and sense of being is what makes us alive, and while robots can be programmed to have a sense of being, they themselves won’t awaken to it.”
Entertainment Needs Drive Innovative Mobile Phone Uses in India
4/7/10 - Last summer, Thomas Smyth, Ph.D. student in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, was working at Microsoft in Banglaore, India, when he had a thought. ”As you might expect, Microsoft employs a lot of people to maintain the building, so one day we called a couple of them into a room and asked them, ‘What do you do with your phones,’” said Smyth. After a few interviews, Smyth and fellow researchers from Microsoft India and one from the University of California, Berkeley, set out to the lower-income neighborhoods and interviewed about 30 people on how they used their mobile phones. They found that most people, in addition to calling and texting, used their phones for transferring media files via Bluetooth.
Georgia Tech President Discusses How Broadband Technology Plays a Crucial Role in Creating Jobs
4/5/10 – Imagine students in rural Georgia learning from Atlanta’s top instructors without leaving their kitchen table. Or a doctor monitoring a patient miles away prescribing instant treatment with a click. Envision an energy grid that allows consumers to not only access data but manage their energy use. Once a luxury, broadband Internet has become an essential utility, what the Brookings Institute calls “essential infrastructure for our global information economy.” But broadband may also prove pivotal in generating jobs.
Gaming Degrees Grow in Popularity and Application
4/5/10 – Computer programmers have sometimes been called nerdy, geeky and brainy. The industry has a new reputation, though. More than 250 colleges and universities offer gaming degrees. At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, for example, there is one that combines engineering, computer science, art and media. The augmented environments lab at Georgia Tech is bustling. Blair MacIntyre runs the lab and shows off some of the experiments.
Georgia Tech and French Consulate Collaborate on France-Atlanta Web Site
4/2/10 – The Consulate General of France in Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology have collaborated on launching a France-Atlanta Web site to report on their ambitious “Together Towards Innovation” project. The partnership seeks to strengthen the trans-Atlantic ties between Atlanta and the Southeast throughout the year in a wide range of academic, business, cultural, humanitarian and scientific endeavors.
LaDiDa: How an iPhone App Can Replace Your Backing Band
4/2/10 – As a research problem, Songsmith was a success; as a creative tool, it was (let’s just admit it) a big fat failure. But Parag Chordia, the director of the Music Intelligence Lab at Georgia Tech, sees promise in such tools, enough so that he turned his own research into an iPhone app called LaDiDa that takes what Songsmith did and makes it mobile… and cool. Chordia and some of his fellow professors have spun off a company from their Georgia Tech research to commercialize tools that make it easy even for non-musicians to create tunes.
3/30/10 – Researcher and digital media professor Celia Pearce reflects on the closing of Makena’s There.com, chronicling the rich culture found there and the ingredients for an enduring virtual community. There.com is often compared to Second Life, its better-publicized competitor, but There.com attracted a different audience, and hence, a unique community emerged over its seven-year lifespan. There.com aimed to appeal to the “everyday person,” a broad, relatively low-tech audience, in contrast to the early adopter geek who often dominates massively multiplayer games and virtual worlds.
Georgia Tech’s LifeNet Project Aims for Wireless Network Innovation
3/26/10 – Georgia Tech’s computer-science researchers have come up with an innovative wireless system called LifeNet, which, because it combines the host client and router function in the LifeNet-enabled mobile device, can allow for setup of a mobile ad-hoc network that could help in emergency response or in places with little network infrastructure.
FutureMedia Sponsors Students for International Game Development Competition
3/23/10 – The year 2010 marks the first time teams from the United States will be participating in the international Dare to be Digital video game development competition thanks to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s (Georgia Tech) FutureMedia (sm) initiative. Five teams of students from Georgia Tech, supported by FutureMedia, have already applied to compete in the world-wide contest sponsored by the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland.
LaDiDa iPhone App Lets Anyone With a Voice Make Music in Seconds
3/19/10 – The husband-and-wife team behind LaDiDa — Khush CTO Parag Chordia and CEO Prerna Gupta — have devised a “reverse karaoke” app that makes it simple for anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch to make songs with full instrumentation using only their voice. You don’t even have to be able to sing in tune in order to use the $3 app, which was approved last fall. In the demo video above, Chordia, who is also an assistant professor of music at the Georgia Institute of Technology, sings absolutely terribly to show that, really, anyone can do it.
Meet Cody: Your Future Non-Terrifying Health-Care Helper Robot
3/18/10 – Georgia Tech is actually working on the cutting edge of these non-android domestic or health-care machines as part of its Healthcare Robotics effort, and this particular device, dubbed Cody, would seem to be a genuine glimpse of the near future. Like the two previous machines, Cody’s a tall, slender wheeled device–about the right height to interact with humans and, therefore, all the furniture and gizmos that you find around a typical room environment.
Tech Students Win Invention Prize
3/17/10 – A Georgia Tech student who invented a new style of weighted exercise clothes won $15,000 through the institution’s InVenture Prize.Mechanical engineering major Patrick Whaley, who designed his OmegaWear workout clothes so that it improves muscle endurance, also won the $5,000 People’s Choice award in the invention competition. Aerospace engineering major Sarah Vaden developed a new method to tune drums and won second place, which comes with a $10,000 award. Vaden’s invention also allows for one drum to produce different sounds.
My Favorite Organic Farmer Is a Robot
3/17/10 – With increased focus on smaller farms, slow food and organic cultivation methods, it was only a matter of time till the robots shook hands with hippies and got serious about growing some arugula. Enter the GrowBot: A partnership between the Georgia Institute of Technology and Atlanta’s independent food community, rogueApron, GrowBot explores the robotic possibilities for local organic farming. According to founder Lady Rogue, there’s a misconception that organic farming is inherently anti-technology.
This New Musical Instrument is Pretty Cool
3/17/10 – This is the Double Slide Controller, described as “an electronic trombone-like instrument featuring two independent slides and two versatile hand controllers.” In any case, it’s awesome. Kind of haunting, kind of eerie, and in a way that sounds genuinely new. It was developed by Tomas Henriques, a professor at Buffalo State. It took first place at the 2010 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, held by the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology.
Georgia Tech Competition Spurs Inventions
3/16/10 – Imagine a headset that senses when drivers are becoming drowsy and beeps to keep them awake. How about a pump, powered by a car, that can provide water access throughout the developing world. Maybe perfection would be a redesigned French press that prevents coffee from becoming bitter. Those are just three inventions among the eight finalists for Georgia Tech’s prestigious InVenture Prize. The contest rewards undergraduate students for their innovation, creativity and sense of adventure. The first-place inventor or team wins $15,000 and second-place gets $10,000. Tech’s Office of Technology Licensing also will pay to file those inventions with the U.S. Patent Office. The winner will be announced during a live broadcast of the competition at 7 p.m. Wednesday on Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Electronic Trombone-Like Instrument Wins Music Technology Competition
3/15/10 – The Double Slide Controller—an electronic trombone-like instrument featuring two independent slides and two versatile hand controllers—captured first prize at Georgia Tech’s 2010 Margaret Guthman New Musical Instrument Competition. Developed by composer and researcher Tomás Henriques, the instrument mixes computer music software, sensor technologies and flexible hand/arm gestures to generate rich, complex sounds.
Technology is Driving Learning in Classrooms
3/15/10 – Due to the Internet2 access, classes have been able to take advantage of advanced learning options. Chad Mote’s classroom is one example. Mote is an Apalachee High School science teacher who integrated Direct2Discovery in his honors chemistry class last fall. D2D connects Mote’s class with an instructor and lab from Georgia Tech, allowing the AHS students instruction from a college educator and virtual access to the college’s science equipment. “It’s a supplement to what we’re trying to do in science,” Mote said. “Science is horribly underfunded, and anything to supplement what we’re doing is really beneficial.”
Georgia Tech Students Develop Digital Locks for Shared Bikes
3/11/10 – Students in Emory University’s bike-sharing program will soon be able to unlock the bikes they want to use by sending a text message. The university will replace its current system, which requires manually checking out a key, with the automatic one, developed by students at the nearby Georgia Institute of Technology. Each bike in the new “viaCycle” fleet will be equipped with a GPS and locking system. When students or employees want to use a bike, they will send a text message with the bike’s identification number to a server. The server will forward the request to the bike and unlock it automatically.
Is Chasing Cybercrooks Worth It?
3/5/10 – This week’s arrests of three men in connection with one of the world’s largest computer-virus networks may seem like great news — perhaps even a sign authorities are starting to win the war against cyberthieves. Mustaque Ahamad, director of the Georgia Tech Information Security Center, which helped track down the arrested men, said preventing viruses from infecting computers was the old model for fighting this type of Internet crime. Today, going after the “bad guys” is the better long-term option, he said. At Georgia Tech, researchers are looking into remote monitoring for computers to ensure that users have updated their anti-virus software and can protect against attack, Ahamad said.
New Gadget Detects Alzheimer’s Early Signs
3/4/10 – Georgia Tech and Emory researchers have developed a new variant of the test for early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, using a gadget that looks a lot like the bad Nintendo Virtual Boy-fatal. The device, which consists of an LCD display, trip computer, headphones, and a controller (which can be a PS2 from the looks of it), given a ten-minute test for telltale signs of mild cognitive impairment. The main advantage is the system detects that it is about 9 times faster than an equivalent pen and paper test.
Georgia Tech Information Security Center Helps Catch Alleged Spanish Hackers
3/3/10 – Spanish authorities say they have nabbed the hackers behind the Mariposa botnet. The botnet, which was developed for large-scale theft of information, took control of more than 13 million computers in 190 nations. The alleged hackers attracted attention from the FBI, the Guardia Civil, and experts at Panda Security and Georgia Tech’s Information Security Center who began monitoring the network last September. During the monitoring, authorities said, one of the three accused hackers logged in without blocking his computer address. His computer was then linked to the other accused hackers.
Scientific Visions from Your Seat in an Offaly Classroom
2/26/10 – Students in a Co Offaly secondary school will have no excuse for saying science is boring when a high-definition video link goes live and connects them directly to research labs in the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in Atlanta, US. The “virtual field trips” are part of the Direct To Discover programme, an initiative run by Dr Jeff Evans, a principal research engineer at the GTRI who is exploring ways in which communications technology can empower classrooms and help rejuvenate interest in science.
Irish Prime Minister Praises Georgia Tech
2/25/10 – Another important development of recent times—and for the Midlands—was of course the establishment three years ago of Georgia Tech Ireland, focused on industry-relevant R&D that bridges the gap between academic discovery and commercial success. As the first applied research facility of the Georgia Tech Research Institute outside the United States, this venture is now a key strand of the recently announced strategic alliance between NUI Galway and the University of Limerick. It is a great example of how strong international linkages can boost performance across our higher education sector.
SEDA, Ga. Tech Offer Free Web Building Seminar
2/24/10 – The days of businesses having Web sites just to say they have one are long gone. The Internet has become the small business hub because it is cheaper to advertise and operate there, sales and marketing experts agree. But getting the most from a site is a challenge for many small business owners. That’s why the Savannah Economic Development Authority in cooperation with Georgia Tech Enterprise Innovation Institute is hosting a free Web site building seminar Thursday for industrial companies with fewer than 100 employees.
Breakthrough in All-Optical Processing Could Bring Terabit Data Speeds
2/23/10 – The only thing standing in the way is some creative materials science, and researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology may have just found the key to converting everything from individual computers to data networks into blazing-fast, all-optical transmission devices. The problem with current telecommunications speeds is that no matter how fast we beam information around the globe, time is lost while photonic signals are converted into electronic signals and vice versa. But with the right materials, low-power high-speed all-optical signal processing is possible, cutting out that intermediary step.
Smart Trash May Be A Profitable Solution for E-Waste
2/22/10 – Smart Trash may sound like an oxymoron but, if my friend Dr. Valerie Thomas has her way, it will be the term that transforms e-waste from a costly problem to a profit center. The basic idea behind Smart Trash is simple – equip every product with a way to provide enough information about itself to enable efficient automated sorting and recycling. Dr. Thomas came up with this idea several years ago while she was teaching at Princeton University (she’s now at Georgia Tech) but it may have finally gotten the recognition it deserves when it was mentioned in a recent New York Times Magazine story about the most promising technologies of 2009. Making items like batteries or cell phones more cost-effective to recycle can be as simple as placing a durable bar code in an inconspicuous spot on its case or embedding an inexpensive RFID tag. The label or tag would contain information about the product’s make, model and configuration which could be quickly read by a scanner when it arrives at a waste recovery plant.
2/22/10 – Researchers at SRI International and Georgia Tech are preparing to release a free tool to stop “drive-by” downloads: Internet attacks in which the mere act of visiting a Web site results in the surreptitious installation of malicious software. The new tool, called BLADE (Block All Drive-By Download Exploits), stops downloads that are initiated without the user’s consent.
Sy Goodman Lends Support to the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act
2/18/10 – Sy Goodman, professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, expressed his strong support of the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 4061) by testifying before the House Committee on Science and Technology. The bill passed the House of Representatives earlier this month with an overwhelming majority vote of 422 to 5. The bill, according to supporters will improve security in all sectors by building a skilled cybersecurity workforce, speed the transfer of technologies to market, and promote awareness of cybersecurity to the public.
Researchers Work to Bolster Smartphone Security
2/18/10 - Smartphones have become indispensable communications tools, but while these devices keep users connected they also pose new security and privacy risks. “Traditional cell phones have been ignored by attackers because they were specialty devices, but the new phones available today are handheld computers that are able to send and receive e-mail, surf the Internet, store documents and remotely access data–all actions that make them vulnerable to a wide range of attacks,” says Patrick Traynor, an assistant computer science professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Traynor and Jonathon Giffin, also a Georgia Tech assistant professor, recently received a three-year $450,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop tools to improve the security of mobile devices and the telecommunications networks on which they operate.
2/17/10 – As militaries around the world invest billions in robotic weapons, no fundamental barriers lie ahead to building machines that “can outperform human soldiers in the battlefield from an ethical perspective,” says Ronald Arkin, associate dean at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The result would be a reduction in casualties both for soldiers and civilians, he says. Dr. Arkin has begun work on an ethical system for robots based on the concept of “guilt.” As a robot makes decisions, such as whether to fire its weapons and what type of weapon to use, it would constantly assess the results and learn.
Can Mobile Phones Help People “Eat Well?”
2/17/10 – Most people know the rules of healthy eating, but most of us might eat a little healthier if we were reminded. Now a researcher at Georgia Tech is testing using a mobile phone to help community members steer themselves away from that chocolate cake and toward the fruits and veggies. “I wanted to make a system that was able to harness the community-held expertise, not just bringing in outside expertise. With mobile phones, I saw an opportunity to use technology to make that information even more visible,” said Andrea Grimes, Ph.D. candidate in the Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Compuing.
Expanded Broadband Sought for Region
2/14/10 – A Florida-based telecommunications company is taking the lead on an application for $19 million in federal stimulus money to expand broadband service in Floyd, Chattooga, Polk and Walker counties. The 15-county Northwest Georgia Regional Commission is partnering in the venture, aimed at creating a network of fiber optic cable linked to a Norfolk Southern Railroad cable that roughly runs parallel to U.S. 27. The anticipated result: faster and more reliable Internet connections for homes and businesses throughout the area. “This region has a very important and unique asset in that (Norfolk-Southern) fiber route and in the private companies willing to work with you,” said Greg Laudeman of the Georgia Institute of Technology Enterprise Innovation Institute. Laudeman led local efforts in 2008 and 2009 to develop a regional technology plan for the four counties using a OneGeorgia grant.
Stimulus funds boost research in Georgia
2/12/10 – Several Georgia Tech professors are seeking to understand how jazz, avant-garde art and Indian classical musicians improvise. Another Tech researcher will study elderly people playing video games, hoping her work could help create guidelines for developing other “brain games” for seniors. Meanwhile, a University of West Georgia professor is investigating the political consequences of climate change in the Arctic. All three of these research projects have something in common: they are among hundreds at Georgia universities that are being funded with federal economic stimulus dollars.
Medical Device Startup Company Wins Georgia Tech Edison Prize
2/10/10 – A Georgia Tech startup company being formed to commercialize a new device that could help prevent pressure ulcers in hospital and nursing home patients has won the first Georgia Tech Edison Prize. The $15,000 prize will help launch the new company, which will be known as Multispectral Imagers. The device, a hand-held multispectral imaging system that provides data in real-time, could be used by health care professionals to detect signs of pressure ulcers before they can be seen with conventional visual screening techniques — especially in patients with darker skin.
TransGaming picks ATL for new unit HQ
2/10/10 – Video game software company TransGaming will start a division in Atlanta that will be home to operations for the GameTree.tv digital home platform. Toronto, Canada-based TransGaming describes its GameTree.tv as an on-demand games platform that gives consumers access to video games through their Intel consumer electronics media processor powered set-top box or consumer electronics devices. The company will create new media technology jobs in Atlanta as part of the digital home business expansion, theGeorgia Department of Economic Development said.
Irish Ambassador Advocates Links
2/09/10 – Irish Ambassador to the United States Michael Collins spoke before Atlanta’s Irish Chamber of Commerce Feb. 9, praising the growing links between companies in the U.S. and Ireland. Ireland’s chief investment agency is hoping to build on the growing business ties between Georgia and Ireland, he said. “One great example of that is the Georgia Tech Research Institute Ireland, established in….2006,” he said. “This supports industry-focused research for groups on both sides of the Atlantic in areas like digital media, biotechnology and energy.”
Resident Composer Michael Gordon joins Georgia Tech’s Sonic Generator
2/08/10 – Georgia Tech’s chamber music ensemble-in-residence, Sonic Generator, will feature the music of resident composer Michael Gordon in a free performance in partnership with the Woodruff Arts Center. Promising a unique experience in live music, creativity, and technology, the concert is part of Tech’s T. Gordon Little Lecture Series in the Imagination. Sonic Generator, Georgia Tech’s chamber music ensemble-in-residence, explores the ways in which technology can transform how we create, perform and listen to music. The ensemble, comprised of some of the top classical musicians in Atlanta, works closely with Georgia Tech faculty in the GVU Center and the Center for Music Technology to present concerts that bring cutting-edge technologies to the world of contemporary classical music.
National Robotics Week to showcase future overlords
2/04/10 – Companies such as iRobot and Adept Technology, along with academic centers like Carnegie Mellon and Georgia Tech, will help sponsor robot tournaments, open houses, and other events across the country. There will even be a briefing at the Congressional Robotics Caucus. Yes, the influence of robots reaches to the highest levels of society.
Arthritis simulation gloves aid companies in designing easy-to-use products
2/03/10 – As the U.S. population ages, manufacturers of consumer goods are realizing that many customers may not be as nimble-fingered or sharp-sighted as they once were. To help product designers and engineers address those changing requirements, researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have been developing evaluation methods and design techniques to identify and address the needs of all consumers, including those with functional limitations. GTRI’s latest product is a pair of arthritis simulation gloves.
Georgia Tech student part of finalist team for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup
2/03/10 – A PhD student from Georgia Tech is part of a team that has been selected to compete in the 2010 U.S. finals for Microsoft’s Imagine Cup. Shayok Mukhopadhyay, an electrical engineering student at Georgia Tech Savannah, and fellow members of team Coders Inc. will take part in the finals in Washington D.C., from April 23-26. The team is one of five software-design teams selected from a large pool of contestants last fall. The Imagine Cup competition is designed to empower students to use technology, innovation and creativity to help solve some of the world’s most challenging social issues outlined in the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
Symposium to give games place in art history
2/01/10 – The Art History of Games, a three-day Atlanta-based public symposium, is scheduled for Feb. 4-6 in the High Museum of Art’s Rich Auditorium. Organized by Georgia Tech Digital Media and SCAD Atlanta, the symposium will feature experts from gaming, art history and related areas of cultural studies.
Striking a chord:Startup’s iPhone app allows user to create musical masterpieces
1/29/10 – Khush Inc.’s app “LaDiDa” — that’s la-dee-da — takes a person’s vocals and composes music to match in real time. People can share their masterpieces with their friends via social media, such as Facebook. Parag Chordia, chief technology officer, developed the reverse karaoke technology. He is also the director of the Georgia Tech Music Intelligence Lab and a professor at Georgia Tech.
Robot Band Backs Pat Metheny on Orchestrion Tour
1/27/10 – Eric Singer, no small luminary in the small field of robot music, took time off from creating Pat Metheny’s orchestra to participate in theGuthman Music Robot Competition at Georgia Tech last spring. He and the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (Lemur) created about 40 instruments total for Metheny, including a new edition of the trademark guitar-bot. Some of these machines have as many as 50 solenoid beaters on them, similar to the solenoids found in washing machines but engineered to be quieter. Each instrument contains a processor that routes standard MIDI notes to the notes on the robot’s instrument, so musicians and composers can control the robots with any standard music software.
CEISMIC Director Richard Millman joins TAG Education Collaborative Board
1/27/10 – Richard Millman has been appointed as a member of the TAG Education Collaborative (TAGEC) Board of Directors. He will also serve as Chair of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Educational Advisory Committee of TAGEC for a three year term beginning in January 2010. Dr. Millman is the Director of the Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) and Professor of the Practice of Mathematics at Georgia Tech.
Wheelchair Mobility at the tip of the tongue
1/25/10 – The Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, one of the largest rehabilitation centers on the East Coast, has joined forces with scientists from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology to try out a new wheelchair, powered not by a keyboard, buttons or a wand in the mouth, but by the patient’s own tongue.
Georgia Tech’s Georgia Electronic Design Center Receives $40 Million in Agilent EDA Software
1/21/10 -Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) at Georgia Tech has received $40 million in EDA software, support and training from California-based Agilent Technologies Inc. The commitment reflects Agilent’s continuing investment in the university community and the company’s dedication to staying at the leading edge of the world of electronic design.
USA Today Pilots Digital Readership Program at Georgia Tech
1/13/10 -Beginning this week, Georgia Tech students may elect to have a copy of USA Today delivered to their inbox.Already available in the traditional paper format at various locations across campus, the online format will give students greater flexibility in how they receive their news.
Georgia Tech Professor Howard Schmidt Named National Cyber Czar
1/06/10 -President Barack Obama has appointed Howard Schmidt, adjunct faculty member in the Georgia Tech Information Security Center (GTISC) in the College of Computing, as the new White House cybersecurity coordinator.
The future of brain-controlled devices
1/04/10 – Researchers are already using brain-computer interfaces to aid the disabled, treat diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and provide therapy for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Work is under way on devices that may eventually let you communicate with friends telepathically, give you superhuman hearing and vision or even let you download data directly into your brain. Researchers are practically giddy over the prospects. “We don’t know what the limits are yet,” says Melody Moore Jackson, director of Georgia Tech University’s BrainLab.
A Robot Named Shimon Wants To Jam With You
12/22/09 - What was billed as the first intercontinental musical interaction between humans and robots took place the weekend of Dec. 17. It involved humans in Japan using an application called ZoozBeat on their iPhones and a robot named Shimon in Atlanta. According to its makers, unlike other robots that can play music, Shimon is perceptual. The robot can listen to what is played, analyze it and then improvise. And it has been taught to improvise like some jazz masters. Gil Weinberg of Georgia Tech’s music technology program recently spoke to NPR’s Robert Siegel from Japan, where he witnessed the historic interaction.
12/05/09 – A national competition aimed at quickly locating 10 red weather balloons tethered at locations across the United States has netted a second-place finish for a Georgia Tech team – along with a set of new insights into the use of social networks for gathering information.
Rural Irish High School Connects With Georgia Tech
11/11/09 – A high school in rural Ireland will soon have a direct, high-speed, high-definition video link to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, allowing students to look through Tech’s million-dollar electron microscope and take classes from top scientists.
