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June 23, 2006
This internal publication contains information about recent coverage
of Carnegie Mellon that appeared primarily in national newspapers, magazines
and online publications. Please note that some sources may require registration
or a subscription in order to access their information online.
Please send comments and suggestions to thomas@cmu.edu
The media coverage archive is available at www.cmu.edu/clips
From June 16 to June 22,
Carnegie Mellon Media Relations counted 331 references to the university in worldwide
publications. Here is a sample.
Special Coverage: RoboBusiness Conference
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 21
IT Week | June 21
Pittsburgh Business Times | June 20
The New York Times (CNET News.com) | June 20
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 20
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 20
National News Stories
Science News | June 17
Forbes | June 16
Education for Leadership
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 21
Arts and Humanities
Hartford Courant | June 22
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 22
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 19
Martha's Vineyard Gazette | June 16
Information Technology
The Dallas Morning News | June 21
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 21
Pittsburgh Business Times | June 19
San Francisco Chronicle | June 18
HPC Wire | June 16
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 20
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 22
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 20
Pittsburgh City Paper | June 15
Pittsburgh City Paper | June 15
International News Stories
Toronto Star | June 22
The China Post (Bloomberg) | June 21
Ciencia Hoje | June 19
Canadian Business (AP) | June 15
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Special Coverage: RoboBusiness Conference
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 21
Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute announced Tuesday the creation of a Center for Innovative Robotics, with software giant Microsoft Corp. providing funding and other support. The center, under the direction of Carnegie Mellon associate professor of robotics Illah Nourbakhsh, will work to spread the robotics message to a wider group of people and businesses. Microsoft is contributing an amount in the six-figure range, Nourbakhsh said, declining to be specific. "The general purpose of the center is, 'How do we create an infrastructure so that everybody can innovate in robotics?'" he said, speaking at RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition 2006, a two-day event at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel, South Side. Nourbakhsh cited the development of the movie camera to describe what he hopes the Center for Innovative Robotics becomes. "The movie camera did not take off, did not make good movies, until people other than its inventors, the artistic people, got hold of it," Nourbakhsh said. "The inventors were all engineers."
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib
/business/s_458879.html | back to top
IT Week | June 21
Microsoft plans a new hardware platform for Windows developers--robots. At the RoboBusiness Conference in Pittsburgh this week, the software giant released a community technology preview–or pre-release testing software-of Robotics Studio, a new set of tools aimed at business, academic and enthusiast developers working on robotics applications. Robotics Studio's visual programming tools include 3D modeling to create services that would let users interact with robots via web or Windows front-ends. The firm also announced partnerships with leading robotics developers and with Carnegie Mellon, a U.S. university that is recognized as one of the world’s leading robotics researchers. Microsoft plans to help fund a new center that will open late this year at the institution.
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/news/2158792
/microsoft-plans-windows-robots | back to top
Pittsburgh Business Times | June 20
Microsoft Corp. unveiled a beta version of its first robotics software, which the company believes can be used to power robots to do everything from basic chores to, eventually, commercial and industrial uses. ... Microsoft is also funding a new research lab, called the Center for Innovative Robotics, at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University. Funds allotted to the Carnegie Mellon lab and its own research group were not disclosed. The roboconference, expected to draw 700 visitors, including investors and entrepreneurs looking for commercial endeavors involving robotics, runs through Wednesday.
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh
/stories/2006/06/19/daily12.html | back to top
The New York Times (CNET News.com) | June 20
Imagine a world with Windows-powered robots that can perform house chores, schedule appointments or walk the dog. It may turn into a reality now that Microsoft has ventured into robotics, a field long relegated to science fiction, but which increasingly has come to life in recent years. Microsoft said Tuesday it launched a new research group and the company's first-ever robotics software, available for public preview via download. The technology, called Microsoft Robotics Studio, is a Windows-based toolkit designed so that commercial and individual developers can create intelligent applications for a range of products. "We hope to put in place the basic plumbing layer to help people get started (creating) robotics applications, and allow third parties to bring their hardware and software to share with everyone," said Tandy Trower, general manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. Microsoft is also funding a new research lab, called the Center for Innovative Robotics, at Carnegie Mellon University, a pioneer in robotics research. Funds allotted to the Carnegie Mellon lab and its own research group were not disclosed.
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-11394
_3-6085629.html?_r=1&oref=slogin | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 20
Pittsburgh's engineering and industrial heritage laid a strong foundation for the city's current leadership position in robotics expertise. Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute offers the only Ph.D. degree in robotics in the world. Luckily for the region, visionary industrialists and investors realize that and are starting to take advantage of it. ... Two other significantly higher profile milestones have further positioned Pittsburgh to become the global leading center of excellence in robotics. Carnegie Mellon professor Red Whittaker's Red Team participated in the 2004 and 2005 DARPA Grand Challenges, two field tests intended to accelerate research and development in autonomous ground vehicles that will help save American lives on the battlefield. The Grand Challenge brings together individuals and organizations from industry, research and development, government, the armed services, academia, students, backyard inventors and automotive enthusiasts in the pursuit of a technological challenge. ... These collective strengths and events are why RoboticsTrends chose Pittsburgh as the site for Robobusiness 2006, which will take place in Pittsburgh today and tomorrow.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
06171/699513-28.stm | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 20
Information technology giant Microsoft Corp. is joining forces in a robotics initiative with Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland, a company spokeswoman said Monday. Microsoft General Manager Tandy Trower is expected to discuss the Carnegie Mellon collaboration at today's opening of the two-day RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel on the South Side. More information about the initiative will be released today, said Doreen O'Skea, a spokeswoman for Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash. Carnegie Mellon is well-known for its robotics research. William "Red" Whittaker, a research professor at the university's Robotics Institute, will be among those speaking at the conference. ... Among the events planned in conjunction with the conference will be the induction of several robots into Carnegie Mellon's Robot Hall of Fame, including Gort, from 1951 sci-fi thriller "The Day the Earth Stood Still.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib
/search/s_458726.html | back to top
National News Stories
USA Today (AP) | June 18
As new disclosures mount about government surveillance programs, computer science researchers hope to wade into the fray by enabling data mining that also protects individual privacy. ... The trick is to do more than simply strip names from records. Latanya Sweeney of Carnegie Mellon University—a leading privacy technologist who once had a project funded under TIA—has shown that 87 percent of Americans could be identified by records listing solely their birthdate, gender and ZIP code. Sweeney had this challenge in mind as she developed a way for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to anonymously track the homeless. The system became necessary to meet the conflicting demands of two laws—one that requires homeless shelters to tally the people they take in, and another that prohibits victims of domestic violence from being identified by agencies that help them. Sweeney's solution deploys a "hash function," which cryptographically converts information to a random-appearing code of numbers and letters. The function can't be reversed to reveal the original data. ***This story appeared in 104 media outlets.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news
/surveillance/2006-06-18-data-mining
-privacy_x.htm?POE=TECISVA | back to top
Science News | June 17
Give a middle school child from a low-income household a home computer with free Internet access and watch that child become a better reader. That's the conclusion of a new study that highlights potential academic consequences of the so-called digital divide separating poor kids from their better-off peers. ... In stark contrast to their poor peers, wealthier middle school and high school students spend much of their time on the Internet trading instant messages with friends, an activity with tremendous allure for young people trying to fit into peer groups, says psychologist Robert Kraut of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. For teens, instant messaging extends opportunities to communicate with friends and expands their social world, Kraut suggests. He and his colleagues probed instant messaging in interviews with 26 teens in 2002 and in surveys completed by 41 teens in 2004. Instant messaging simulates joining a clique, without the rigid acceptance rules of in-person peer groups, in Kraut's view. Each user creates his or her own buddy list.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles
/20060617/bob9.asp | back to top
Forbes | June 16
Since Bernanke's blunt talk last week, seven Fed governors have delivered a similarly hard line on inflation. Even though each of the Fed speeches have stressed that the economy is slowing, the message getting through to investors is unequivocal: The Fed is far more worried about inflation taking off. Yet Washington economists don't see the threat of prices spiraling out of control, and thus are perplexed by the notion that aggressive tightening by the Fed is necessary. "We have a strong growth economy with very little inflation--remarkably little considering what's happening to oil," says Alice Rivlin, the vice chair of the Fed's board of governors from 1996 to 1999 and a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The economy doesn't have the ingredients for runaway price increases, argues Allan Meltzer, the founder of the Shadow Open Market Committee, a group that tracks Fed policy, and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Money growth is slow, unit labor costs are falling and productivity growth is barreling along, he points out. "There isn't a sign of a long-term inflation problem." ***Allan Meltzer is a Carnegie Mellon professor of political economy and public policy.
http://www.forbes.com/business/2006/06/
15/bernanke-economy-inflation
-cx_jh_0616bernanke.html | back to top
Education for Leadership
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 21
At first glance, the humble gray boat looks like the typical flat-bottomed variety used for fishing or duck hunting. But once four solar panels are placed across its bow and wired to an electric motor mounted on the stern it's clear this one is powered by something other than a boater with oars. This boat's fuel source is the sun and Carnegie Mellon University students have spent a year raising money and designing and building the solar-powered boat for competition this week. Known as "The Carnivore"--which demands explanation later--the boat will be Carnegie Mellon's first-time entry in the Solar Splash World Championship, an annual collegiate competition of solar-powered boats built to meet strict contest rules.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
06172/699712-115.stm | back to top
Arts and Humanities
Hartford Courant | June 22
Jim Daniels, a poet who directs Carnegie Mellon's creative writing program, will read tonight at the second 2006 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival event at the Hill-Stead Museum, 35 Mountain Road, Farmington. Daniels, who has published many collections of poetry, won the Brittingham Poetry Prize for "Places/Everyone." He had three books of poetry published in one month: "Digger's Blues," "Night With Drive-by Shooting Stars" and "Greatest Hits." He will read at 7:30 p.m., in the museum's Sunken Garden, following music from the Kim Zombik Jazz Quartet, featuring Paul Brown, Arti Dixson and Jim Argiro, who will play at 6:30 p.m.
http://www.courant.com/features/
booksmags/hc-bkcut22f.artjun22,0,2191787
.story?track=mostviewedlink | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 22
Two Saturday concerts will let the public in on the ardent music-making going on this week at Carnegie Mellon University where the Jeanne Baxtresser International Master Class 2006 is being held. She was principal flute of the New York Philharmonic for 15 years, and has been Vira I. Heinz professor of flute at the university since 1998.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/
pittsburghtrib/s_458953.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 19
Today, Carolyn Lambert embarks on a three-month pontoon adventure for what she calls "the perfect linear narrative"--stories of the Ohio River and the people who depend on it. The Carnegie Mellon University Studio for Creative Inquiry is partially sponsoring the trip of its fine arts graduate of 2005, a sculptor and performance artist. She will visit at least 60 towns and cities and interact with about 500 people between Pittsburgh and Cairo, Ill., where the Ohio meets the Mississippi.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/
06170/699385-42.stm | back to top
Martha's Vineyard Gazette | June 16
Piano notes ring out and fill the empty main room of the Outerland nightclub. Rather than enjoying the sunny Monday afternoon, the five-member cast of Ruthless!, an Off-Broadway musical that debuted here Thursday evening, is in full costume. They are rehearsing as they have been since May 22 - every day from noon to four, with one day off. Laura Mixon, who plays Tina, an eight-year-old Broadway baby trying to make it, belts out one of her many numbers, flashing a dazzling smile and tap dancing, all at once. "I was born to amuse," she sings, "from the tip of my nose to the tap of my shoes." The line could easily apply to director Kaf Warman, who sits at a small desk by the foot of the stage. As the show's first run-through progresses, Ms. Warman alternately lets out chuckles, makes notes and sighs. She first came to the Island 19 years ago and has been an integral member of the arts community ever since, teaching workshops, directing shows and serving as the associate director of Island Theatre Workshop. ... She accepted a job at the University of Maine at Orono and then finally at Carnegie Mellon, where she teaches movement and improvisation. Although she has been teaching there for 10 years, Ms. Warman still thinks of the Vineyard as home.
http://www.mvgazette.com/news/
2006/06/16/kaf_warman.php | back to top
Information Technology
The Dallas Morning News | June 21
Computers are better than humans at a lot of complex calculations, but we still have them beat on some small problems. That's why a very simple test has protected some of the world's biggest Web sites for so long. Go online to perform a routine task--buying Rangers tickets, say, or sending an e-mail or commenting on a blog--and you'll see a picture of random squiggly letters. The Web site asks you to type the letters you see–something a computer can't do without some sophisticated programming. That keeps hackers from using software to repeatedly enter information on the sites, or sending spam through online e-mail services or blogs. ... The distorted-letter test "is getting to the point where it's almost defeated" by computer scientists in the laboratory, said Luis von Ahn, a post-doctoral fellow at Carnegie Mellon University's computer science department. "The ones not yet defeated by computers are really hard to read for humans. But they'll be defeated pretty soon."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws
/bus/stories/062206dnbusCaptcha.12dbeda.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 21
A small, wheeled robot designed and built at Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland powered the school's robot soccer team--CMDragons '06--to victory last weekend in the small robot league at the RoboCup 2006 World Championship in Germany. The team's five robots outscored opponents by a combined 53-3 margin in the six games played. Team adviser Manuela Velosa said the superior speed of the new robots gave the team its winning advantage.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/
search/s_458926.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Business Times | June 19
Today's fast-paced Internet climate, there's a lot companies need to keep an eye out for: viruses, hackers, even snooping employees. Ensuring that a computer network is secure isn't just a good safety precaution--it's also the law in some instances. There are a number of government regulations concerning protecting client and employee information, according to John Humenik, president and CEO of Wexford-based Nomad Networks LLC. Securing a company's computer network can be complicated. With so much information to guard, the first step should be to identify the most important information that needs protection, according to Larry Rogers, a senior member of the technical staff at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Internet Security Expertise. "A lot of security technology is available (as well as) how-to books saying do this, do this, install this," Rogers said. "People have lost track of what problem they are trying to solve.
http://pittsburgh.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/
stories/2006/06/19/smallb3.html | back to top
San Francisco Chronicle | June 18
In this age of information, wealth and ideas flow through wires and cables just as wheat, iron and other goods once traveled over railroads and highways. Who controls today's digital thoroughfares, and whether they get to charge extra for safe and speedy passage, has emerged as a potentially defining debate for the Internet. This issue is commonly referred to as "network neutrality," a slogan that leans heavily to one side of the argument. The debate, which the Senate is poised to consider as soon as this week, centers on whether all Internet traffic should be given the same delivery treatment at the same price, as it has since the start of the Internet, or whether the companies that deliver the traffic to consumer's homes can charge heavy users more. ... In recent weeks, academics such as UC Berkeley economist Michael Katz and Carnegie Mellon computer scientist David Farber have argued against net neutrality. Katz, a former Federal Communications Commission economist and Justice Department antitrust official, said consumers might benefit from Internet pricing mechanisms that levy fees on content vendors.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file
=/c/a/2006/06/18/MNGAOJENV81.DTL | back to top
HPC Wire | June 16
In the second part of our interview with Michael Levine and Ralph Roskies, the two scientific co-directors at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, they talk about the LeMieux computer, the PSC approach to supercomputing, and the challenges that lie ahead for the center. ***Michael Levine is Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon.
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/694115.html | back to top
Regional Impact
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | June 20
Two-tenths of an inch of rain + slight wind gusts--lightning = 2,700 people with no electricity. That was the equation yesterday for Duquesne Light Co. line workers, who struggled with three power outages that left some areas of Allegheny County without electricity for a total of seven hours. ... As part of the $500 million system upgrade, Duquesne Light President and Chief Executive Officer Morgan O'Brien said the utility company planned to hire 150 new full-time employees and 120 contractors to do the work, which, he said, will reduce the number of power outages. Dr. Jay Apt, executive director of Carnegie Mellon University's Electricity Energy Center, said that while the upgrades will help, Duquesne Light already provides reliable service, especially for an urban power company with 12,000 miles of above-ground and underground power lines.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg
/06171/699619-28.stm | back to top
Local News Stories
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 22
Robert Siegler. Residence: Point Breeze. Age: 57. Family: Sons, Todd, 30, and Aaron, 26; daughter, Beth, 28. Occupation: Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Education: Bachelor's degree in psychology, University of Illinois; master's degree and doctorate in psychology, both from State University of New York at Stony Brook.
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib
/search/s_459073.html | back to top
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review | June 20
The 20th edition of the Ligonier Valley Writers conference will be held July 28 and 29 at the Ramada Inn in Ligonier. Participants include: Hilary Masters, on the novel. Masters teaches at Carnegie Mellon University and is the author of "Home is the Exile" and "Manuscript for Murder."
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib
/search/s_458713.html | back to top
Pittsburgh City Paper | June 15
It’s hard to recognize Billy Price without the shades. Walking through the streets of Oakland, you might not see 30-year veteran of the blue-eyed soul circuit Price, but mild-mannered Carnegie Mellon University writer and editor Bill Pollak. And maybe at one time the Clark Kent-ish Pollak and his UV-shielded R&B alter-ego—front man for The Rhythm Kings, The Keystone Rhythm Band and The Billy Price Band—were more independent of one another than they are now. But since the dissolution of perennial next-big-thing The Keystone Rhythm Band in the early ’90s, Billy Price’s private life as a well-employed husband and father has given him the luxury of an artistic freedom he never had in those crazed days of A&R reps and major-label bait-and-switch. And from the sound of East End Avenue, Price’s new album of original soul and R&B material, it’s a luxury hard-won, but well worth it.
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/archive.
cfm?type=Featured%20Music%20Preview
&action=getComplete&ref=6294 | back to top
Pittsburgh City Paper | June 15
Watching people take in the exhibit "Something Borrowed, Something Blue" at Carnegie Mellon University's Future Tenant gallery Downtown, you might think cell-phone use had reached a new low —is everyone ordering a pizza or checking messages instead of appreciating the art? But actually, patrons are listening to the artists explain their work, using a new-to-Pittsburgh technology called Guide by Cell. When a gallery subscribes to the San Francisco-based service, it can record any messages it desires—in this case, artists Leslie Ansley and Monique Luck explaining their work, biographies, history and upcoming gallery events. Gallery visitors who call in to the service can select menu options based on what piece they are viewing, or whose bio they want to hear. ... "Who needs all that extra equipment and extra cost? Everybody has a cell phone; everybody has minutes and hours to burn," says Jerry Coltin, director of the Institute for the Management of Creative Enterprises at Carnegie Mellon. He met Asheim at a museum-technology conference and was intrigued enough to connect him to Antonio Ametrano, a student in Carnegie Mellon's Master of Arts Management program, which runs Future Tenant.
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/news
/story.cfm?type=News%20Briefs | back to top
International News Stories
Toronto Star | June 22
The Star's entertainment department came up with long lists in each category. Then we asked Canada's arts community to lend us their expertise. Our panels, each of which include a Star staffer, were: Children's Entertainment—Kids' entertainer Fred Penner; Degrassi star Miriam McDonald; Eleanor LaFave, owner of Mabel's Fables bookstore; and family issues reporter Andrea Gordon. Theatre—Playwright/director Djanet Sears, Soulpepper founder Albert Schultz; Elizabeth Bradley, head of drama at Carnegie Mellon University; theatre critic Richard Ouzounian.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer
?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid
=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1150840212142 | back to top
The China Post (Bloomberg) | June 21
The receding tide of global liquidity has left many emerging markets high and dry in the past month, but not China. The challenge facing the People's Bank of China is the opposite: It has to prevent its monetary policy from being swept away by a deluge of surplus cash, which has created a property bubble and is fanning credit growth that's too rapid and risky. The monetary authority's strategy will be what People's Bank Vice Governor Wu Xiaoling has evocatively described as "removing the firewood from under the cauldron." If only it was that simple. ... "The People's Bank of China ought to discontinue the payment of interest on excess reserves," economists Marvin Goodfriend at Carnegie Mellon University and Eswar Prasad at the International Monetary Fund, wrote in an April paper. "Experience has shown that discontinuing interest on excess reserves in order to raise the opportunity cost would lower the elasticity of excess reserve demand and greatly reduce its volatility."
http://chinapost.com.tw/p_detail.asp
?id=84528&GRP=i&onNews= | back to top
Ciencia Hoje | June 19
Irene Fonseca was born in Lisbon, July 10, 1956. Her research interests lie in the areas of continuum mechanics, calculus of variations, geometric measure theory and partial differential equations. Her recent work has been focused on the search for effective or relaxed energies, and on the study of existence, regularity, oscillatory and hysteretic behavior of solutions of (non convex) variational problems associated with materials instabilities, nucleation and growth of phases, the formation of islands (quantum dots), fracture and defects in solids, etc. ... She is currently a Full Professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, holds the Chair of Mellon College of Science and is also the Director of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis. ... Irene Fonseca says her international reputation is due in part to her contributions to the area of the Calculus of Variations, somewhat more active in Europe than in the USA, and to the role she plays in the leadership of the Center for Nonlinear Analysis. According to Roy Nicolaides, head of the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, "Irene repeatedly puts the department at the forefront of significant activity in applied mathematics and also has a talent for identifying potential leaders in applied mathematics".
http://www.cienciahoje.pt/index
.php?oid=3435&op=all | back to top
Canadian Business (AP) | June 15
Maryland consumers won't have sticker shock this summer under an electricity rate plan passed by state lawmakers Thursday, but they won't have complete peace of mind, either. The plan doesn't say how much of an increase consumers will face when the one-year deferral ends next July, leaving that up to a new Public Service Commission. And full market rates will kick in July of 2008 with consumers paying for the deferred first-year increase for a decade. Lester Lave, an economist and co-director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University, said the bill was mixed bag for Baltimore Gas and Electric consumers, who escaped a 72 percent increase with a plan that limits the increase to 15 percent the first year by adding a monthly charge to their bill for a decade.
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market
_news/article.jsp?content=D8I8TB5O1 | back to top
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